Motherhood and more: Weighing the workforce*

I’ve been contemplating going back to work.

Well, sort of. I mean, I want to. I do. Kind of. My kids are growing older. My son will start kindergarten in the fall, and my daughter will be old enough to start preschool.

It seems a good time to start looking. I like the idea of doing something, using my mind for more than worrying about my kids eating enough vegetables, contributing to the household funds, and in turn being able to go out to eat on occasion or buy a dress without feeling that I’m taking money away from my kids’ vegetable fund.

No, they don’t actually have a vegetable fund. But sometimes you need a pretty dress at the expense of a good grocery trip, you know?

(I’m joking.)

But, man. We’re coming up on summer, which is the best time to be a stay-at-home mom. We can spend all of our time outside playing in the little pool, making smoothies and digging in the dirt. We can ride bikes and grow tomatoes and blow bubbles.

Winters are hard because I’m not the best at playing and when we’re inside they both look to me to entertain them. Well, me or the Ipod, which they continuously fight over. And I spend a lot of time arguing with my son to wear actual long pants when it’s 10 degrees outside. And I fight with my daughter to stay inside when she isn’t wearing shoes or a coat or pants when it’s 10 degrees outside.

And then I fight against my urge to run away from home.

But summers are so much easier on everyone, especially considering that I don’t have to layer up myself and my kids in scarves and hats and gloves and, most difficult of all, pants, just to go out the door. And the kids are much better at entertaining themselves outside without my help. And there is less fighting because there is more to do.

I’ve been lucky to be able to stay at home with them for as long as I have. It most definitely hasn’t been easy — monetarily or mentally. And physically, for that matter.

But I’ll never forget the relief of not having to take my daughter to daycare. Of being able to just hold her and not hand her off to someone I barely knew.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll find the perfect job that will help me edge back into the workforce with relative ease. Or maybe I’ll stay at home another year or so, spending my time trying to keep my youngest from aggravating her brother more than anyone ever thought was possible.

It just depends. Whatever job I find has to be worth it. It has to be right for me and right for my family. It has to challenge me but also be something that makes me feel like I’m working toward something, like I’m doing something meaningful.

And it has to be worth being away from my babies.

*This column originally published in The News-Enterprise on April 24, 2013.  

Self-perception dysmorphia is totally a thing because I just made it up

I think I learned something about myself last week.

I know, I know.  It's a little dorky and cliched and whatever to announce that in a blog, but give me a break.  I haven't been in this space for three weeks or so and I missed my blogaversary and I'm a bit nostalgic and also rusty.

I'm including this picture of myself because I feel
like I have a lot of wordy posts and maybe you'd
like to have something to break up all of the words. 
That's my backyard.  It has a tent in it.  And a dead
plant.  And over my shoulder you can see our raised
garden bed.  And one of the nurses at the hospital
said I had really pretty hair.  So you're welcome to
stare at it instead of the bags under my eyes.

And so - I learned something.  About myself.  Last week.

On Wednesday I had some, I guess you could call it exploratory surgery.  (If you are of the male persuasion or don't like to read about lady bits, you might want to pick up in the next paragraph.)  Basically I've had some random, excessive spotting that I haven't been able to get rid of for the past year and a half.  So my doctor figured it was time to take a closer look and see what she could see with a camera.  Like the bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea.

I don't know.  Rusty, remember?

I didn't have any pain, but I had to have anesthesia, which meant that all day Wednesday I was groggy and tired.  The kids stayed with my parents, who are pretty amazing for taking that on.  The were there all day Wednesday, Wednesday night, and all day Thursday.

For a week before the surgery I started getting excited, thinking about all of the uninterrupted time to myself I would have.  I never have time alone, and I absolutely never have time alone where I don't have a million things that I have to do.  And with this, I physically wasn't able to do anything, so I was ordered by my doctor to do nothing.  To sit around all day.  DOING NOTHING.

I spent all of Wednesday laying on the couch watching television.  I did attempt to knit a little bit, but my mind wasn't able to focus.  And on Thursday I tried to get up and clean a bit but got dizzy and had to sit back down.

I thought I would be in heaven.  It was all I thought I wanted.  Time to veg out.  Time to do nothing.  Time to not worry about anything but running out of television shows to watch.  (I totally ran out.)

But I hated it.  HATED IT.  I was so bored and lonely and just all around done with doing nothing.  My body didn't know how to relax.

I spend so much time running around all day that when I was forced to relax I was miserable.  The TV was ridiculous and irritating.  I read, too, which was nice.  But all I wanted to do was stand up and vacuum or wipe something down or knit something or sew something.  I wanted to DO something.  Or if I couldn't do anything, I wanted my babies back home so I could break up their arguing or fetch a cup of milk or play outside.

I wanted this so much that I made Chris go pick up the kids on Thursday when I probably should have taken another day to recover.  I was by myself all day with the kids on Friday and in that time I made bread and pizza sauce and pizza dough and mozzarella cheese and ice cream and I fixed lunch and I carried my daughter around because she wasn't too happy with me for leaving her for so long.

And I loved it.

It was exhausting and even a bit painful, but that's normal, right?

I struggle over and over again with feeling like I fail at motherhood or fail at keeping the house in order.  I feel like I'm lazy and unproductive.

But on Thursday, when I was begging my light-headedness to go away so I could do some laundry, I realized that I've got this.

My house may not always be spotless (HA!) and my kids may spend too much time playing games on the ipod - but I'm not lazy.  Or unproductive.

So shove it, self-perception dysmorphia.

Go somewhere else.  I don't have time to deal with you.  I'm too busy.

(Here's a link to my first blogaversary post.  Maybe for my third I can get it together to write something super awesome.  One can hope, right?)

But I didn't cry this time, which is surprising

Before we went to his open house a couple of weeks ago I thought I'd be thrilled, excited, relieved and overjoyed to have him gone in the mornings again.  As I've said many times over, probably so many that you want to kick me in the shins, it's been a hard summer.  The kids are at the perfect age to bug the crap out of each other and they take full advantage of it, fighting and yelling all day long.

Plus Sebastian is so bored and I'm ill-equipped to ease that boredom when I spend most of my time refereeing.  So I was looking forward to the time when he wasn't looking to me all the time to offer him something fun to do.

But at open house I got that feeling, that rock in my stomach that told me I wasn't ready, even though I didn't have a choice. It's one more step he's taking without me, one more adventure he gets to go on that I'm not suited up for.

But there was also something entirely new going on in my ridiculously sentimental brain.  There was something so familiar about that school, and not just because he went there last year.  I peeked in another classroom as I walked by, and it was set up like the ones from my elementary school.  Not the new one where we weren't allowed to touch the walls, but the old one that was about 10 feet from the Catholic church, where us Catholics left class once a week for religion while the heathens who weren't catholic got to watch a movie.

I spent a lot of time in and around that place.  And maybe it's just because he's going to a catholic school that is right next to the church, but it felt comforting, solid, familiar.

....................................................................................................................

I changed his pants twice, and wanted to change them back to the first pair but we ran out of time.  He's in between sizes and I couldn't decide if I should go big or small.  I ended up with small.  He was so thrilled to be going to school, but when we walked into the classroom he seemed a little hesitant, much more so than last year.   

When I kissed him goodbye he said he'd miss me while he was at school.

Oh honey.  I missed you, too.

(Last year's first day of school post is here.)

I think I'm like this because I don't see adults very often

Text conversation I had with Christopher this morning because he is Very Important and Busy and can’t be bothered to answer his phone at work:

Him: I cannot talk what to you need

Me: Jessica invited me to go to chick fi lay to have lunch and knit with a bunch of knighted and I wanted you to talk me into it.

Him: Buch of what

Me:  Knitters 

(Did you know spell check changes ‘knitters’ to ‘knighted’? WTF spell check?  I’m pretty sure you should know me better than that by now.  I don’t think I’ve ever used ‘knighted’ in a conversation.)

Him: Go ahead

Me: That’s some pretty lame convincing.

(Jessica is my neighbor, by the way.  And she has a blog.  Go say hi!)

Now you have to look past the fact that neither one of us took the time to make sure our words were spelled correctly, which normally I’d be irritated at because I was an English Major and as we all know those people can be pretty crazy about punctuation and spelling and overall grammar mistakes, but at this point I was in the process of changing a diaper and trying to grab some sort of knitting project that wasn’t too cumbersome to take with me and also trying to rush to pick Sebastian up from preschool in time for him not to be the last kid there.  Spoiler alert: He was anyway.  But once I convinced him that we’d go somewhere where he could play, because apparently just having a strawberry milkshake wasn’t enough of a bribe to get him to just go with the flow of something out of the ordinary, he settled into the idea and even was excited.

And so I went, because up until the point that I turned right instead of going straight to go home I hadn’t been sure.  It’s not that I didn’t want to go, and it’s not that I didn’t think I’d enjoy the company.  I’m not sure if you can tell from my hilarious word spillage that happens on these pages, but I’m a bit socially awkward.  Unless of course I’ve had a shot of tequila, but that didn’t seem like such a good idea at 10:30 in the morning while I had to drive.  Of course, if I was staying home it totally would have been a possibility, except I don’t have tequila but I do have 10 year old Absinthe that tastes like disgusting mouthwash but doesn’t even have the decency to have the wormwood in it, which is what makes Absinthe so special to begin with. 

But anyway, I get nervous whenever I know I’m going to meet new people, and it wasn’t helping that I didn’t sleep well last night and also overdosed on caffeine this morning so was a bit jittery and also twitchy-eyed so I knew that if I met these people I’d have to work hard not to seem like someone coming down off a crack binge.  Do knitters do crack?  It kind of seems like they wouldn’t, although if they did, they’d probably get more stuff done.  Maybe it’s kind of like a deadline thing, like if they’re knitting a shawl for someone’s birthday and they need it done in two days, crack may be the way to go. 

I wouldn’t know about that, though.

On the drive there, when digging around for some chapstick to make my lips look less like the undead, I pulled out an unwrapped tampon.  It wasn’t used of course, just one that had been stored in the glove box and came out of its wrapper, but it freaked Chris out so much when he was cleaning out the car that I took it out of the glove box to put in my purse to throw away later, but forgot about it because I have lots of important things to do that don’t involve remembering to throw away wrapper-less, unused tampons that just happen to be in my purse.  So I put it back in the glove box so I wouldn’t be searching for something to distract Adele with when she started throwing food and napkins and anything else in her reach and accidentally pull out an unwrapped tampon in the restaurant.  Although it would probably be a good ice breaker.  Or maybe not.  Not everyone keeps unused, unwrapped tampons in their purse.  I’ve heard.

But everyone was nice but I can’t remember names because I was nervous and also trying to keep my eye from twitching because I thought if I concentrated enough it would stop.

FYI – it’s still twitching as I type this.

I was able to knit a couple of rows on a sock while Sebastian and Adele played in the play area.  I was hesitant to let Adele go in there alone, but she did fine until I looked up to see her screaming at the bottom of a slide.  I still haven’t figured out what happened but she had a big bump on her forehead.  And after that I figured it was time to go.

I didn’t talk much to the people I didn’t know, but hopefully if they get together again and I can go and spend more time actually speaking.  But it was nice to hang out with my neighbor.  And she didn’t even laugh at me when I banged my hand on the corner of a random piece of furniture that I’m almost convinced leapt out in front of me to possibly make me even more uncomfortable, and it hurt so bad that I couldn’t move my fingers.

It’s better now, but still hurts.

It’s my blogaversary, bitches!*

I first found out about blogs way back in 2004 or 2005, freshly graduated and working as an ‘office assistant’ at the career services office of the university that had just given me my diploma.  That label, by the way, was a fancy way of saying ‘you answer the phones and we will treat you like you’re still a student and kind of an idiot, even though you’re better at your job than some of us are.’  I’m paraphrasing, of course.  But there was a lot of down time, and in that time I noticed a certain lax attitude over what we did when we weren’t answering the telephone, which hardly rang, or filing papers.  That was probably because the boss, the big, main boss, was super close to retirement and so would have ‘meetings’ where she left the office to go somewhere else and read the newspaper.  Also she played a lot of solitaire on her computer.

So I used the internet to pass the time.  I first was introduced to blogs when looking for knitting help.  (exciting, no?) My first daily read was needles on fire, which hasn’t been updated in years and looks a little sad now.  But that one led me to another one, which led me to amalah, (still one of my very favorites) which opened up a whole other world of things with which to pass the time at work when no students came into the office, which was basically all the time because they all get disappointed when they realized we didn’t actually just hand jobs over to them. 

And I’ve never looked back.  Reading about the lives of others, in their own words, be it funny or sad or disgusting or thought-provoking, was fascinating.  And it was a bit eye-opening, as I had in my last semester of school taken the best writing class of my entire life, with the best professor anyone could hope to have. But when Dr. Hagaman complimented me on one of my personal essays, I said I was always better at writing about myself.  He said that that was fine and all, but I also needed to be able to write well at other things.

Sucker.

I had just spent years, YEARS, writing ‘literary criticism’ essays on things that I was honestly not mature enough to grasp at the time.  But with blogs, here was a way to be creative, irreverent, and FUN, all while talking about myself, which just so happened to be my favorite subject.

But I was afraid.  I was afraid no one would want to read what I’d written, or that people would read my words and judge them harshly.  And so I started with myspace.  Oh, don’t you laugh.  You know you were on there, too.  I’d write short little blogs that my friends would read.  At one point I asked people for a list of subjects, or 'writing prompts' if you will, and had a blast putting my own spin on their topics even when I screwed up and wrote about foot ottomans instead of the Ottoman Empire, like my friend had requested.  But really, we can all say that feet ottomans are much more interesting, right?

But time passed and I got married, moved, bought a house and had a baby, then had another baby and quit my job.  I still read a lot, but wasn’t contributing much to the internets, be it ever so small.

One day we had some friends over and one of my husband’s friends (and I guess mine, too) suggested that I start a blog.  He said that he thought it would be something I would be interested in, or that I would be good at.  I don’t remember the exact words, because it was a long time ago and I was probably drunk, but it was encouraging.

And that was just the push I needed.  I’d been thinking about it a little more since I’d been home alone with two children and no one to talk to.  And that settled it in my mind.  I didn’t care if no one read (okay, I cared a little bit) (a lot).  I didn’t care what someone thought.  This was something I wanted to do.  (Here’s the link to my very first post that all of eight people have read so far.  I’ll wait here while you go read it.)

And so I started it for the connections I would find, of which I’ve found a few.  But I also started it because maybe when my children look back on their childhoods and think negatively about how I didn’t play with them enough, or didn’t create enough glitter and puff-pin flash cards, or didn’t manage to have daily educational activities like all those moms on pinterest seem to, maybe they will read what I’ve written and see that I did my best with what I had.

Also, I was tired.  So very, very tired.

(But kids, you do know all the words to ‘Don’t Stop’ by the Chili Peppers, so I must be doing something right.  Or, excuse me, ‘The Tunnel Tent Song’ as it’s known in our house.  Don’t judge.  It’s the only thing that will get Adele to sit still.)

And while my readership has grown tremendously to almost 50 on days when I post something, and sometimes even 20 on days when I don’t, I still only want for people to enjoy what I’ve written.  I want them to laugh at the fact that I’ve spent hours perusing my childhood journals to bring my shame to you; to cry when I talk about how hard it is to be a mother; or how difficult it is when there are issues with the person you’ve entrusted your child to while you work; to maybe be just a little bit disgusted, but also amused, when I talk about my son shitting outside in our driveway; or maybe to take a different approach to judging celebrities who chew up their babies’ food before spitting it into their mouths.

I want you to read.   

Thank you for reading.

(But if anyone could help me make some money off this mofo that would be awesome.  Mama wants a new dress.)

So as a thank you, I offer you a series of dimly lit, blurry photos.  I call them: Jaime and Adele and dirty bathroom mirrors.

Your welcome.

(Adele kept us up from 2:30 until 5 this morning, so this is the best I can do on account of the absolute exhaustion. Also - please excuse the muffin top.)

*I’m not very fond of that word for the anniversary of when you started blogging, but I didn’t know what other word to use.  Also, I don’t regularly call people bitches just for sport.  Unless they try to steal my wine.

Everything is awesome until someone mentions herpes

I’ve said it before: I do not do well with change.  Or stress.  And that usually manifests itself in physical ways, meaning my insides get all jacked up.

The night before I was supposed to move away for college I strained my back.  I had a bunch of friends over as a last goodbye-type thing and we were slumber-partying it up in my oven of a bedroom (no air conditioning mixed with top floor of an old, poorly insulated farmhouse in August is pretty much how you’d expect hell to feel).

I’d worked for the summer at a small grocery store about 10 minutes from my house.  I started as a regular checker, then progressed to an unofficial bagger/stocker, mostly because the stock boys got paid more per hour than the checkers and they didn’t want to hire someone new and have to dish out the extra 50 cents per hour.  

(No, I’m not still bitter about that.  Why do you ask?)

But I worked my butt off and did lots of heavy lifting and straightening and stocking.  I’d felt random twinges in my back, but I didn’t think it was anything to worry about.  (I’m of the ‘ignore it and it isn’t really happening’ persuasion.)  

Until, of course, the night before I left for college.

I STRAIN MY BACK THE NIGHT BEFORE I LEAVE FOR COLLEGE!

It was awful.  I could barely move, much less carry boxes and suitcases full of CDs, clothes and various contraband toasters and coffee pots and other appliances.

That first week at school was only a freshman orientation-type thing where we had to go to different classes on time management or the library or random, mostly pointless stuff.  Basically I went so I could move in early and avoid some of the crowds.

And I thought I was fine, but I also tend to not deal with things as they are happening.  It’s only later when I’ve had time and years to analyze the situation that I discover that basically, inside, I was freaking the frack out.  

It’s not like I hadn’t been away from home by myself before, but this was different.  I was ON MY OWN.  I did my own grocery shopping, paid my own phone bill (back when everyone still had non-cellular telephones), and washed my own dishes.  

At some point the beginning of the week I’d developed a cold sore on my lip.  I’d never had one before and I didn’t realize that if you so much as think of touching it the small mark will balloon into the monster of all cold sores and you will have random, newly colleged people attempt unsuccessfully not to stare at your besmirched face.

I also developed a throat thing that didn’t bother me all the time, just when I swallowed or breathed or moved my head to look at eye level instead of down at everyone’s shoes.

Luckily the doctor had given me some sweet pain pills that made everything feel better, so I guess it was a win?

By Thursday I was so physically miserable that I decided to go see the campus doctor.  I figured that I was mature enough and grown up enough to do what needed to be done.  Plus my mom made me do it.

So after examining me the doctor gives me her diagnosis.

Well, basically that’s herpes you disgusting slut.  (Is what I heard.)

What?

That sore is called herpes (stupid, immature whore).

And that is when I break down.  Completely.  Lost.  IT.

I cry and blubber so much that the nice, helpful* doctor actually calls my mom because she doesn’t realize what I’m so worked up about.

What she hasn’t told me and what I figure out all on my own is that there is a difference between herpes and, you know, HERPES.  

I had a cold sore that can be caused by a cold or STRESS OF EPIC PROPORTIONS.  Like life-changing situations.

I did not have an STD.

I was done with that week.

I packed up my stuff and left orientation early, missing out on one class and thus losing the free T-shirt you got for attending all of them.  (Still kind of bummed about that one.)

I cried most of the way home.

(I did go back at the end of the weekend, though, to a roommate who recorded soap operas to watch later and wore clothes that reminded me of a 40-year-old woman.)

*Sarcasm

(Just for kicks here's a photo collage of my actual back injury. I have to keep it this big so you can fully appreciate the visualness.  Also, my room was awesome and I miss it.)

Clockwise from top left: Happy, Happy, OH SHIT MY BACK!!, can't move, need
boyfriend to cheer me up with a sock monkey-like elephant.  And scene.

Well, would you want to bring used paper towels to your son’s new classroom?

I knew I was close to the edge when I yelled at Chris for unwrapping the package of paper towels that were for Sebastian’s class.

You see, I didn’t want them to think I was bringing them used paper towels.

I’ve been scatterbrained and forgetful and jittery.  I almost broke down trying to pick out what socks to buy Sebastian in the store last night.

I couldn’t go to sleep, and when Sebastian woke up at 4:30 having to pee this morning, I was already wide awake.

In other words, I’ve been FUH-REAKING OUT.

Since we decided to put Sebastian in preschool I haven’t given too much thought to how it will be for me.  I mean, I knew I’d have some free time, but I didn’t really know, you know?

And the past few weeks have been spent getting him ready, with school shopping and eye doctor appointments and open houses.  But just in the last few days it hit me that he’ll be spending regularly scheduled time away from me, learning things that I’m not in charge of teaching him.

When we were waiting at the optometrist office we were sitting near a mother and her teenage son.  She was knitting and he was texting or playing a game or just fooling around on his phone.  It’s going to sound corny, but I saw my future in them.  That will be me and my son in about 12 years.

And it just hurts my heart to think about him growing up.  He’s such a big part of my life and I’m such a big part of his.  

Obviously that will change as he does more and more things outside of the house and away from me.  And seeing him sitting in that huge eye-doctor chair, with his little legs crossed and acting a little more reserved than normal (which is not at all) since everything was new and strange, I can see that this is the beginning.

He’s no longer my baby and probably hasn’t been for a long time, but I was too busy to see it happening.  He’s growing up and soon won’t be pretending to be various characters he sees on TV or reads about in books, or saying things like “I like it but I don’t like it,” or looking at me out of the corner of his eye when I ask him to name a letter he can’t remember.

He’ll be going to school and making friends and probably getting in trouble for talking too much or refusing to answer to anything other than ‘Pingu’ or ‘Baby Jaguar.’

And so this morning was tough for me.  We walked into his classroom and his teacher put his name tag on and showed him how to hang up his back pack and then he went straight to the train table.  I caught up with him and took my hug and kiss and let him know again that he was staying but I had to leave.

Love you baby.  Have fun.

Bye!  See you later!

The tears came as I was walking out.  One of his teachers came in the hallway with me I guess because she knew I needed a little comfort and commiseration.  

My big boy.

He’s going to have so much fun.