sing a song of Christmas

Hello, dearly loved but sadly neglected-of-late blog. I’ve been absent not because I do not care, but because my child is sick, my workload has literally doubled since mid-November, and, as of last week, I have no babysitter until after the holidays. I’m grateful for the work, don’t get me wrong, but I am working close to thirty hours a week, and, lest we forget, I am a full-time mother as well. It’s just a lot to deal with right now.

But the extra work is a godsend. It’s allowing us to actually buy some Christmas presents this year, if not many, and I’m hoping to put some of it towards our flights to my friend’s 2010 wedding in Tahoe. And a part of me cannot believe I didn’t miss steady work more in the first year of Abby’s life, but then I remind myself: new mom hormones. They are fierce. It’s probably not helpful that most women end up making the final decision to work or stay home when they are newly postpartum, deep in baby love, and totally hormonal. I never stood a chance.

That said, I still love being home with Abby, and I’d still choose to have all the time I’ve had with her. Our babysitter only comes for two hours at a time, and I miss Abby the whole time. But it’s easier than I thought it would be, coming home (or downstairs, as the case may be) and having Marissa tell me about some new, interesting, or funny thing Abigail did while I was away from her. I don’t feel sad that I missed it; I’m just as happy and proud as if I’d seen it first, and Abigail is now at the age where it’s very easy to prompt a second (or third, or eightieth) performance on command. It’s hard to explain; maybe it’s just because I feel as though I get so much more of her, now that she’s bigger and she knows and can do so much — and narrate everything she does — so I don’t feel I have to be there every second of her day. I like that she has the opportunity to charm and delight other people; it keeps me from thinking I’m crazy for getting such a kick out of her.

It’s clear that Abby views Marissa as a sort of big sister, and as a result, I think Marissa brings out a little part of her I don’t usually see. That’s neat: I’m very glad she has a babysitter she likes so much who is a regular part of her life. We are so far from our extended families, but she needs more than only the two of us all the time. I want her to have good relationships with people of all ages other than just me and Dan.

* * *

Yesterday we acquired a Christmas tree, set it up, and put the lights on, though we have yet to dig out our ornaments. It’s the earliest I’ve put up a Christmas tree in my entire life. Our house has very few Christmas decorations so far; we are in the tiny but stalwart band of Catholics who put up only the nativity scene, Advent calendar, and a few seasonal decorations early in the month, and wait till it’s almost Christmas to trim the tree and deck the halls. Then we leave everything up through the official end of the Christmas season, which I believe is the Presentation at the Temple (the week after Epiphany — well into January), though some people I know claim it ends with the Baptism of the Lord later in the month. Whatever the case may be, I like to leave the tree up till the end of January, just to cover the bases. (No, actually, I leave it up because taking down the Christmas tree is the single most depressing task of the livelong year, and I like to put it off as long as possible. It was not unusual in my house growing up to have a Christmas tree up on Groundhog Day.)

Abigail has acquired several Christmas books (Olivia Helps with Christmas and Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree are her current favorites, as well as a pretty illustrated version of “Silent Night” that was mine when I was younger), and through them, in part, she has gained several Christmassy additions to her vocabulary:

“baby Jesa” = baby Jesus
“Mary and Jofuff” = Mary and Joseph
“ivityivity” = nativity
“yights” = lights
“reindeewuh” = reindeer (while holding her hands up to her ears like reindeer antlers)
“no” = snow
“noman” = snowman
“noflake” = snowflake
“presetz” = presents
“tockings” = stockings
“minutes” = mittens (! this is my favorite!)
“Siyent Night” = Silent Night
“Gloooooooria…Deo” = Gloria in excelsis Deo
“Merry Chribbus” = Merry Christmas

Anyway, if you ask Abby, “What happens on Christmas?” she will spin you this long yarn about “Chribbus,” “baby Jesa born,” Mary, “Jofuff,” some angels, some donkeys, and some camels. Oh, and some baas: Abby is very sure that there were many, many baas present at the birth of Christ.

She’s known all her letters for weeks now, including some of the lowercase ones (she likes to find pairs among her magnet letters, and then comes to show me: “big H, little H” — the girl is very into opposites at the moment), and she’s counted to nine on a number of occasions. I don’t think she has a real concept of numbers in terms of quantities, except for small ones like one and two and three. But she thinks it’s fun to memorize the order of the numbers, so she counts with Dan as he scoops coffee into the coffeemaker, or counts steps as we walk up the stairs together: “one, two, free, four, fiveh, sic, seven, eight, naan.” But instead of saying ten, she starts over again with “one.”

The craziest thing about her, by far, and yet the thing that should probably surprise me least, is her powerful memory. My parents told me I had a crazy memory at her age, too — and even now, my memory is one of my greatest (let’s face it: few) assets — but somehow it’s just too shocking to see the same in Abigail, who I still think of, after all, as “the baby girl.” I know she’s not a baby anymore, I know it shouldn’t surprise me when she tells these long choppy stories about things we did weeks ago (scraping her knee and hand and getting two Hello Kitty bandaids; visiting our goddaughters Sophie and Isabel and their puppy Zoey; going to Sturbridge and seeing cows and chickens and sheep with Aunt Cindy and Uncle Rick…). Lately her favorite story has been about a day right after Thanksgiving, one of the first truly chilly days we had, when we went for a walk through the gardens. It was daytime but the moon was out; we met a white puppy and Abby tried to give her a hug and a kiss; I wore new beige gloves, and she didn’t like the feel of them when I held her hand, so she kept saying “Mama, goves, off!”

As Dan and I have discovered, one of the great ways — really almost the only way — to get Abigail to calm down when she is hysterical is asking her if she remembers the time we did such and such; somehow, she will always stop crying and start telling us about whatever it was we did. The other night — a truly wretched night, possibly our worst ever with her — when she was awake and sick with a bad cold and crying so hard she gagged on her postnasal drip, we finally got her to calm down by asking her, “Do you remember when you went to the gardens with Mama?” Immediately she stopped crying and said, “Mama. Abby. Walk. Moon. Mama. Goves. Off! Puppy. Hug. Hug. Hug. Abby.” So we did.

I’m not dead yet!

Hi guys.  I’m still alive.  Sick baby + sick husband + no babysitter + work + freelance work + too many deadlines + impending holidays + it’s too damn cold = not much blogging over here.

I’m pretty cranky anyway, so I doubt you want to hear from me at this point, but I do plan a dramatic return soon.  (With Christmas portraits!)  I love you all.

next time won’t you sing with me

 

Hope you all had a very happy Thanksgiving!  Or a “happy giving,” as Abby took to calling it.

Abigail is older than most of the other kids at our library storytime, and I think the other moms are unnecessarily impressed with her. Like, of course she can tell you what a “green turtle” is; she’s 21 months old. It is nice to be told that your child is brilliant, but I think they are only impressed because their babies are still, well, babies.

Disclaimer aside, though, in my totally biased opinion, Abby seems extraordinarily mature these days. She knows her letters, she knows her shapes and colors, she’s always talking fresh and stealing my shoes and breaking curfew. Her hair is getting long, but she cries tragically if I try to put a clip in it. Drama, much? She is officially a “big girl,” as she tells us quite often.

My crazy grandmother spent our brief Thanksgiving phone conversation pressuring me to have another kid. I do not need any sort of family input regarding the vacancy or occupation of my uterus, thank you Grandma! I certainly do not need said input three times in a five-minute phone call. She pointed out that Abigail will be two at the end of February and, just so I know, now is the “perfect time to work on another one”! And don’t I just wish there was another baby around? After all, my baby is not a baby anymore!

People always say this as though babies are interchangeable. They’re not. No matter how many children I have, a part of me will always miss Abigail’s babyhood, because it was hers.

When I took her up to bed tonight, we brushed her teeth and said her prayers as usual, and as I put her down she said, “music,” with the sweetest little smile. I sang her the song we’ve sung to her every single night since she was a newborn, and she sang the last word of every phrase with me. For the beauty of the earth / For the glory of the skies / For the love which from our birth / Over and around us lies / Lord of all, to you we raise / This our grateful hymn of praise.

“Night-night, I love you, Abby,” I said.

“I yub oo, Mama,” she said. She was still smiling at me as I put her down and shut the door.

 

 

Heavy lifting, bad mothering, I do it all

Given how much Abigail loves to say her own name, I figured her first properly pronounced three-word sentence would include it, and sure enough, I was right. As we pulled into our driveway after a five-hour car trip last weekend, she looked at me and said, calmly but firmly, “Pick Abby up!”

This is also what I heard, off and on, for two hours yesterday afternoon as we stood in line to get her a swine flu shot. “Pick Abby up!”

And it’s what we hear when bathtime, mealtime, or naptime is over: “Pick Abby up!”

I have to say, a couple of times I’ve come close to telling her to pick herself up. She’s awfully heavy.

* * *

The December issue of The Atlantic arrived in our mailbox earlier this week, and as usual, I skipped right to the book reviews section, because Real News bores me. No, really: it does. And The Atlantic is simply lousy with Real News; have you ever noticed? I cannot for the life of me remember why I ever stopped subscribing to The New Yorker, which was my Snooty Magazine of Choice all through college and just after. Sure, The New Yorker was half-filled with events in or around New York City that I (resident of Baltimore and D.C.) could not attend, but at least it also included original fiction and the occasional ten-page feature about sandwiches. Sandwiches! Want to keep my interest, Atlantic? I hope you are taking notes here. The Atlantic doesn’t even publish fiction anymore, except in its much-touted, once-a-year, off-the-rack-only “fiction issue.” What is THAT? And isn’t a fiction issue that is not automatically sent to subscribers — like myself — the publishing equivalent of a tree falling in the woods when no one is there to hear it?

But enough of my whining. I really do enjoy Sandra Tsing Loh’s sporadic book review columns for The Atlantic, though lately she has been oversharing about the recent demise of her marriage, so that the simple act of reading her reviews makes me feel like a voyeur. In her latest offering, from the December 2009 issue, she reads about (and confesses to) bad mothering — in this day and age, is it inevitable, to some degree? Using Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch as a jumping-off point, Tsing Loh considers her own late marriage and the situations of mothers like her:

[T]hen I turned to [Greer's] chapter called “Family,” in which she argues that “stem”—or extended, multigenerational—households are inordinately stable; as opposed to today’s two-parent nuclear families, stem homes can never be “broken,” as their success does not “rest on the frail shoulders of two bewildered individuals trying to apply a contradictory blueprint.”

Bingo. What better phrase to describe marriage among those of my own bewildered demographic slice—parents of the Creative Class? We start with the best of intentions. In her 20s, the Creative Class female carves out a cool Creative Class career, like Writer. She meets a man with an equally cool Creative Class job—say, Devoted Documentary Filmmaker of the Obama 10-Year African Kiva Water Project. In their 30s, the baby comes: the Creative Class mom is pitched into hormonal bliss (at least at first); the very same week—argh, the timing!—Gates Foundation money suddenly comes through for the Obama-kiva-water-project documentary. Clinking champagne glasses, both spouses agree that Dad must fly to Africa for two months to finish filming while Mom cares for the baby. (The last thing she wants is be a 1950s nag—and how rarely does Gates money come through, how important is drinking water for Africa?)

After kissing her husband goodbye, the Creative Class mother now begins to care for their baby, alone, in New York, or Los Angeles, or whatever cool city they’ve moved to. She’s isolated from her stem family—the grandma, aunts, and in-laws (who all love children!) have long been left behind in notoriously un-Creative Lompoc, Fort Lauderdale, or Ohio. She can barely maneuver the stroller down the four flights of stairs to get to Gymboree ($20 for 45 minutes, and you have to actually stay with your nine-month-old and drum). Result: the 21st-century Creative Class mom’s life is actually far worse than that of her 1950s counterpart. Her husband works as many hours (and travels more), but life is uncomfortable on his salary alone, and the isolated mom has no bingo-playing moms’ group to ease the unnatural, teeth-chattering stress of one-on-one care of her child.

Greer argues that what the shift from stem to nuclear family primarily serves is capitalism, as single-family units represent, first and foremost, a “controllable pattern of consumption.” How much would industries suffer, she argues, if three families shared a washing machine?

I know, that’s quite an excerpt. So much to take in. Let’s get the obvious out of the way, first: Call me capitalist scum if you must, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to share my washing machine. Not with cloth diapers to wash every other day.

Next. I confess, I don’t think I am exactly one of the “Creative Class” Sandra is talking about here. I don’t know whether I can capitalize my Creativity. I did (sort of) “carve out” a “cool” “career” in nonprofit and freelance work — if we broaden the definition of “career” to “assorted jobs at which I make, in total, far less than I would tutoring rich kids not to blow the SAT.” And, unlike the true Creative Class moms as defined by Tsing Loh, I didn’t wait till my 30s to have a baby. My husband is not a member of the “Creative Class” at all; he is a weird hybrid of biologist and engineer, and so while I do occasionally worry about him never finishing graduate school, I don’t have to worry about him running off to save Africa, either.

But the part that really spoke to me in this article is the isolation of the anxious modern mother. It drives me absolutely batty when anyone I know talks about stay-at-home motherhood as “traditional,” because really, there is almost no time and place in history except for perhaps the last 50-60 years when (reasonably well-off) women even had the option not to work, at some sort of job, in or outside the home, to help support their families. And while those women throughout history were working and caring for and teaching and bringing up their children, they often had help and support in the form of older sisters, aunts, grandparents, etc. — the “stem”/multigenerational households to which Greer alludes. Not so for today’s mothers, navigating the choppy waters of modern parenting while being buffeted on all sides by the rigid ideologies, personal agendas, and unrealistic expectations of others.

I think about this often, actually, because I live a good 3,000 miles from my own mother and rarely see her. We don’t see my parents-in-law terribly often, either (about which I shall refrain from comment). I hear from people whose parents live close by that, frankly, they are not always very helpful, but for me and Dan it’s not even a possibility. Let’s face it, our fathers would probably be no help whatsoever; and even if we lived near our mothers, neither one of us relishes the thought of living with them again (I don’t think our moms are exactly clamoring to live with us, either).

As for support, I do have some great friends who are mothers, and I love them and their kids, but the support we offer each other is primarily the emotional sort. These women, many of whom live several states away, are all just as busy as I am. Of course they can’t do much to help if I just can’t deal with my dramatic toddler or find the motivation necessary to make dinner. Again, I love them and am so grateful to have them in our lives, but in terms of my day-to-day tasks and the isolation that comes along with staying home with Abby, knowing other moms doesn’t really alleviate the pressure, because we’re almost too busy to take the time to vent to one another.  Also, when I do get together with or talk to other mothers, the last thing I want to talk about is how stressful it is to be a mom — really, how relaxing is that?

My husband, who is a full-time student, still manages to do more child care and chores than about 99% of the other husbands we know.  The work of caring for and raising our daughter is far from mine alone, and we try to be supportive of one another and give each other the breaks we need.  But I think we both still feel somewhat isolated and overwhelmed much of the time, as we have, honestly, ever since we found out we were expecting our first child. I keep looking around, wondering, where the hell is my village? And dude, we only have the one kid so far; we still outnumber her — imagine what it will be like with one or two more.

It’s a great life, being Abby’s mother and squeezing my own life in around the edges, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I don’t mean to sound discouraging, truly.  I know how fortunate I am to be able to make the choice to be home with Abigail most of the time. All the same, I wouldn’t call this situation of ours perfect — in this day and age, living where and how we live, I’m damned if I even know what “perfect” would look like.

I lift up heart, eyes

I first noticed it on our flight to San Antonio. Abigail was sitting on my lap, and we were reading a story together, and then she glanced up at me through her lashes and I saw the smallest, faintest little pale grey patches on the white part of her right eye. Upon closer examination, I spotted a smaller patch in her left eye. They were barely a shade or two darker than the white, but still clearly visible, and I wondered how long they had been there and how I had missed them before.

I pointed them out to Dan, and we exchanged worried looks, and as soon as we got home from San Antonio I made an appointment with one of the doctors at our family care practice (Abby’s usual doctor is out on maternity leave). The doctor said her eyes looked fine, and she wasn’t worried, but she referred us to the pediatric eye specialists just to be sure.

That appointment was two days ago. We were seen by several doctors and a couple of medical students in training, and Abby was asked to identify animals and shapes and colors on a screen across the room — like an adult eye exam, but with pictures instead of letters. Then they dilated her pupils and the “big doctor” came in to examine her.

She used some big long scary words but essentially told us that right now, it’s not problematic at all; the tiny grey patches aren’t interfering with her vision, and they are basically like freckles. We’ll watch them to make sure they don’t change or grow or darken or gain texture, and she wants to see Abigail every six months for this reason. She explained that this condition is not at all common in children of white parents — and if Dan and I were both white, she might be more concerned — but apparently it is occasionally seen in ethnic or mixed-race kids. Then she added (hilariously), “That’s not a racist comment,” as if either of us thought it was. I was just grateful to have some kind of explanation — oh, okay, pigment, good to know. Although Dan did see fit to joke as we left, “See, our interracial marriage resulted in freckles on Abby’s eyes. And that’s why miscegenation is of the Satan.”

So Abigail is fine and her eyes are fine, and we are relieved that we had it checked out. Of course, we’re not thrilled that she has the grey spots at all, and they aren’t likely to go away. If they get worse — the doctor says there is a very slim chance of that ever happening, but it may — she might have to have them removed at some point. That is very scary to think about. She’s just so pretty, and she has such beautiful eyes, and I hate to think of something being really wrong with them, now or ever (apart from the obvious bad vision she will have someday — Dan and I both have terrible vision, so odds are good she will need glasses, too).

Of all the many changes in my life that motherhood has wrought, the constant, heightened sense of worry is one with which I struggle most. Let’s face it, I was already a horrible worrywart; I didn’t really need to become even more neurotic and obsessive about it. And yet I have, somehow. I was glad to receive the doctor’s assurances that Abby’s eyes are alright, but I still can’t stop fretting over what could happen. And if I wasn’t worrying about that, I know I’d worry about something else. Since becoming her mama, I know my heart doesn’t really reside in my own body anymore, and that vulnerability is something to which I am still adjusting.

All Hallows’ Eve

We borrowed an adorable lamb costume from our goddaughter Madeline, which I intended to have Abby wear for Halloween, but then I remembered that I had my old dirndl — sent to me by my aunt when she was stationed in Heidelberg years ago — and I had never tried it on Abigail. Sentimentality plus an extremely warm Halloween night sealed the deal; the dirndl seemed like a far more comfortable option in the 80-degree weather. Abigail could have stepped right out of The Sound of Music.

We met Abby’s friend Olivia and her parents Leslie and John for a quick dinner — Abigail freaked us out by biting down so hard she broke the little plastic spoon we had (stupidly) given her for her yogurt, and I am still not entirely sure she didn’t swallow part of it. But, uh, she appears to be fine. After dinner, Abby and Livy had fun trick-or-treating in Leslie and John’s neighborhood. They were the cutest!

She went to bed an hour past bedtime, which worked out perfectly with Daylight Savings. I’m not sure she really understood the big deal with treat-or-treating, but she got a little taste of it, anyway (if not a taste of the actual candy, which I convinced her were just small, brightly-wrapped toys), and I’m sure she’ll be ready and rarin’ to go next Halloween!

Mind your manners

Abigail has been 20 months old for a few days now, and somehow that just sounds so much older than 19 months. It sounds treacherously, impossibly close to 24 months, at which point we’ll stop measuring her age in months, I guess, and switch to…years? Years, as in plural, as in more than one? I’m sorry, I know that over-the-top sentimentality might be the very worst thing about mommyblogs, but that is seriously too much for me, you guys. She seems so old these days, talking all the time (she almost never signs anymore), repeating every word I say, making up songs, building forts, memorizing poems, creating spontaneous beat poetry while banging her drum or a handy piece of furniture, flirting shamelessly with the boys next door… Many of her baby words are disappearing, replaced by…the actual words? What? Augh, I am pathetic, I know, but seriously WHERE DID MY LITTLE TINY INFANT ABBY GO.

I have two excellent bits of news on the daughter front. The first is that I have succeeded in teaching her something approaching good manners: I have convinced her to say “please” when she wants something. Sometimes I have to prompt her, asking (in an annoying fashion that reminds me of my grandmother) “What do you say?” — but she hops to, and immediately says please (“pease,” actually). She also says “thank you,” though in Abby-speak it sounds more like “geek you.” My not-even-two-year-old is calling me a geek. Well, it probably won’t be the last time.

At any rate, I have found that having a child who says “please” all the time vastly improves my mood. My patience with her is not so quickly worn down by constant requests for “more, more, more”; instead it is “Mama, pease” and “geek you, Mama.” What do you know, Miss Manners was on to something! “Please” is the greatest word in the English language!

The second piece of good news is that my babysitter is back — hey na, hey na, my babysitter’s back. This has also greatly improved my quality of life. She’s only here for six hours a week, which I realize is less than a single workday, and yet it has made all the difference in the world. Abigail calls her “Rissa” (a shortening of her name, Marissa) and clearly wishes we would adopt her and make the situation permanent. It’s good for Abby to get the occasional break from me, and it’s good for my sanity to get a couple of hours uninterrupted worktime.

Best of all, Marissa is good enough with Abby to put her down at night — twice now Dan and I have escaped the house before bedtime, once for a quick dinner date, and once to see Yo-Yo Ma perform over an hour away. Both times we came home to a quiet house and a peacefully sleeping baby. Someone alert the Vatican; I think we have a miracle.

In other news, I am still blogging at Irene’s Daughters about Glee and the Ole Miss fight song and, from time to time, things that actually matter. We don’t have so many readers yet; I like to think of ours as the little blog that could. So far, the most hits we’ve ever had in a single day was 310, thanks to a kind repost/link from the fabulous Stuff White People Do blog. I know that a heated discussion about racism is probably, well, not quite the thing for most of you, but if you are ever curious, please stop on by. We rant a bit sometimes, but we try to be nice about it.

Godcousins!

We are back from our SECOND! trip! in two weeks! with our baby! – and on this, the coldest weekend of the fall thus far, our heating unit is out of commission. Of course. Welcome home. I’ll return to posting at my poor neglected blog(s) once the heat has been restored at Casa Abigail. Perpetual anticipation is good for the soul, and I’m sure the lack of heat is good for my character.

sisters, sisters

I totally hit the sister jackpot with Cindy, you guys. She is fantastic. And really, I am not saying that just because we didn’t grow up together and I never had to fight her for the curling iron or whatever.

PSA: new group blog

…But YES another blog!

Irene’s Daughters – women exploring race relations, systemic racism, and prejudice

I am one of three contributors (so far!) at Irene’s Daughters, and I must admit, I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing. But this new blog is an outlet for issues that have been very much on my mind for, oh, the last twenty-eight years, give or take, and I also find it helpful and encouraging to talk about these things with people who are way, way smarter than I am.

Maybe it’s not your thing. But on the off chance it is, please check in from time to time, and by all means join in the discussion. We have a lot to learn from each other.

(LJ peeps! I set up a feed here if you want the posts to go to your friends’ page, but I am not sure the feed actually works. Hmmm.)