kdiddy.org

As of this morning, I am the mother of a second-grader. Excuse me while I gather my internal organs. They seem to have exited my body.

Part of this morning’s first day of school activities included the annual picture. Every year for the past four years, we’ve taken a picture of the baby on the front porch. And every year I screw up the perspective entirely so that it’s hard to look at the pictures from year to year and get a good sense of his growth. Case in point:

Top row: pre-K, kindergarten
Bottom row: 1st grade, 2nd grade

You have to adjust and notice that his legs are about 500 feet longer than they were last year. Other things of note are the brand new Chuck Taylors and the flat-brimmed hat. These were both very specific choices of his. The Chucks are low-tops because the high-tops were the shoes for first grade. The flat-brimmed hat indicates assimilation into the fashions of mainstream hip-hop. Whatever.

I, of course, had an annual first day of school picture growing up. My mom would cart me to my grandmother’s house and they would take my picture in front of this tree in my grandmother’s front yard. Nearly every picture has me squinting fiercely because those pro photographers had to have their backs to the sun. I think the last one would have been 10th grade because after that year I started my ballet program that had me at ballet class first thing and not going to school until later in the morning. Also, by that time I was far too sullen to bother with such nonsense.

And I’m pretty sure that tree is dead now.

We stopped by the baby’s school Tuesday night for their welcome-back event and got to check out his classroom and meet his teacher. I need to take a moment and gush about his school. It’s just wonderful and we’re so lucky to live some place where a progressive and outstanding public school exists. And the building itself is amazing. It is always spotless and it’s decorated so warmly, you can’t help but cheer up a little bit when walking through the halls.

The husband and I both went to struggling Catholic schools for elementary school and we both recall them as being very drab, which is weird since Catholic churches are always so campy and over-the-top with their decor. You would think that the decorating bug would carry over to the schools. But I guess the priests and nuns who didn’t have the gift of knowing which gold chalices would go best with stained glass window depicting some anguish and naked people are assigned to education detail.

Anyway, another awesome thing about the public schools here is that they do an excellent job of providing everyone with school supplies. The only downside to this is that it eliminates the need for the annual school supply shopping.

We decided to hit up Target that night anyway to get the baby a new backpack and a big thing of pencils for our house. While we were there I decided to poke around the bedding section to check out their duvet selection.

We have these comforters from Ikea that are about four years old. They’re still in good shape, but are rather dingy at the top where our greasy hands and faces come in regular contact with them. Despite my best bleaching efforts, the faint yellow remains as evidence of many good nights of sleep and drool.

All of the duvets that they had in stock were at least $70 so I decided to wait and order a cheapie version online and grabbed some new sheets while I was at it. I went with these two:

I’m going with the chocolate/blue combo because I totally have my finger on the pulse of the color scheme trends of 2003.

ANYWAY, all of this duvet talk kept making me think about Fight Club and how silly it is that I am even concerned about such things. And then I also started wondering if duvets were also mentioned in Raising Arizona when H.I. and Ed are giving Nathan Jr. the tour. But that was a divan.

With that sorted out, I think I can move on with life now.

By the time you read this, it will be August 31st. I’m writing it on the 24th and on the 24th, it is a very stressful day at work for me. And I miss my kid and my husband terribly. On the 24th, they are at the beach for five more days.

On a day like the 24th, what would keep me going is the thought of coming home and hugging my kid and then curling up next to my man at night. On the 24th, I can’t do that and due to poor cell reception I might not even be able to hear their voices.

On the 24th, I realize this and burst into tears at my desk.

What makes it even tougher is that I can’t make this post public and reach out to the people who help to hold me up. “I’m alone in my house and emotionally vulnerable and therefore probably drunk!” doesn’t seem like the best thing to post to the internet.

Mandatory annual trip to Kennywood: completed Friday, August 14th (just under the self-imposed deadline)

High temperature on date of trip: 92 F

Humidity: 6 bajillion %

People in attendance: seemingly the entire population of the tri-state area. Apparently, there was a picnic happening that day for employees of Giant Eagle. This was funny to us because our last few trips to Idlewild have always coincided with Italian Day, during which you cannot spit without hitting five guys named Tony and the tarantella will haunt your dreams for weeks afterward. We managed to avoid that crappy timing this year, but were at Kennywood while Italian Day was going on at Idlewild. We’re subconsciously drawn to crowds, which is funny because we hate people. But I guess we need stuff to bitch about.

Hours at Kennywood: 9

Rides enjoyed: only 10 (see also: People in attendance)

Vomit puddles spotted and narrowly avoided: 2

Buckets sweated: At least 35

Potato Patch fries consumed: about 10, personally. Chewing and digesting made me sweat more.

Other fried goods consumed: sadly, none

Children whose lives I changed (probably for the worst) by shoving him onto the Phantom’s Revenge with me: 1 (mine)

How I accomplished that: we told him we were in line for the Turnpike. (This charade didn’t last that long, but I did have to convince him that we would come out the other side alive and days later I’m not sure that he believes me yet.)

Number of times I saw that lady that I always see at Kuhn’s who kind of looks like the Cryptkeeper: 1

Minutes I blatantly stared at her: too many

Number of stars for that night’s post-Kennywood shower and slumber: Five. With a bullet.

My identification with fictional characters is pretty strong. At least once a year, a movie or a book or a TV show or a song will hit so close to home that I become a little convinced that it was sent to me for a reason.

I’m an indifferent agnostic, but I guess if there’s one thing that keeps me wondering about the existence of God, it’s pop culture.

Well, I suppose that’s far too simple. A more poetic expansion of that theory would be that art is often the result of someone expressing their feelings and/or experiences into a medium and sharing that art with the world to be experienced, discussed, and hopefully related to.

More than once, I’ve suspected an artist of setting up surveillance in my home and brain because the emotions and words that they’ve captured on film or in music or whatever so poignantly echo my own.

Most recently, this happened with My So-Called Life.

Yes, I know that MSCL happened way back 1994, but that’s what makes this experience so great.

MSCL hit me pretty hard when it originally aired. I was 15, just like Angela Chase. I was a sophomore in high school, just like Angela. I was quiet and tentative, just like Angela. I was growing increasingly mopey about high school and its preamble to adulthood, just like Angela. And I was having a really hard time living in the same world as my mom, just like Angela.

Recently, hulu.com put all 19 episodes of MSCL up. Last night, I decided to watch the pilot for the first time in a few years, since the last time that I happened to catch a rerun on TV.

It was a really weird experience. I still felt so much like Angela. I still find myself wanting to hide under my sweater during whatever is the grown-up equivalent of yearbook meetings. I still have moments where I can’t look at my mother without wanting to stab her repeatedly. My scenery has changed, but I might as well be 15.

But for the first time ever, I saw a lot of myself in Patty, Angela’s mother, particularly last night.

The baby has become increasingly difficult to handle. In many ways, this is not surprising. He’s 7 and 1/2 and has been on vacation all summer without much structure to his days. And he doesn’t have access to many kids his age so he doesn’t have anyone to relate to his energy most of the time. I understand this.

At the same time, I can’t help but become furious at his increasingly shitty attitude. Yesterday in particular, everything that came out of his mouth had some sarcastic bite to it. Obviously, sarcasm is practically currency in our house and in this respect (and this respect only) we’re filthy rich. But beyond the sarcasm in his voice yesterday there was a distinct tinge of meanness. He was being mean to me.

In a more perfect life, I would have a heart and brain big enough to deal with him in a more emotionally intelligent manner. But I don’t.

Last night, while reading before bed, he snapped at me for not turning the pages quickly enough and indicated that the friction of the paper had some direct correlation to my lack of intelligence. This was at the end of an evening during which this attitude had clung to his every word, despite repeated warnings that if he kept it up, all joy would be removed from his life indefinitely.

I’d had enough. I reminded him of the warnings and how they were likely to become realities now. I also appealed to whatever sympathy he might have for me and asked him how he thought it made me feel when he talked to me that way, after I go to work and make him dinner and clean his clothes and whatever else I do in a day that is for him. He started to cry and said that he thought it made me feel sad and that he was sorry for making me sad.

I can’t be sure if the tears were more about the threat of having his Godzilla DVDs confiscated or if he genuinely felt bad for hurting my feelings. In any case, I was extremely grateful for some moment of clarity.

In the pilot of MSCL, which I watched right after putting the baby to bed, Patty and Angela’s dad have a number of disagreements. One in particular hinted at Patty’s frustration at being the mean one all the time. Someone has to be the adult and make sure that the kids aren’t being total assholes. While that isn’t exactly the transcript of the arguments that the husband and I have (mostly because our kid is younger and his bad behavior is still relatively simple deargodgetmeadrink), I often find myself trying to get my family to understand that I feel totally on my own sometimes. They don’t always get it, mostly because it’s hard to hear, “I’m very frustrated right now due to X, Y, and Z issues,” over my refrains of, “WHY THE FUCK AREN’T YOUR SHOES ON? I HAVE TO GO TO WORK RIGHT NOW! OH, SURE, JUST LEAVE THE DISHES PILED IN THE SINK THAT’S MY FAVORITE SHIT EVER!!!! NO, YOU CAN’T BUY THAT BECAUSE WE ARE BROKE MUCH LIKE WE’VE BEEN FOR THE PAST TEN YEARS!!!”

Near the end of the episode, Angela goes to her mom’s room, exhausted from her botched attempt to gain entry to Let’s Bolt. Suddenly, she starts to cry, and apologizes to her mom for having a shitty attitude. I think neither Patty nor Angela expected it, but Patty hugs Angela fiercely and Angela falls asleep in her mom’s arms. The turmoil is over, for the moment.

It was so weird to watch that moment, having just come from a nearly identical moment in the next room. Seeing someone who so typified my adolescence climb into the arms of someone who is starting to typify my adulthood/motherhood/wifehood was like getting a glimpse of my utter confusion that surrounds my identity and my decisions.

I think it really speaks to the craft and brilliance of MSCL that I can relate to it so well both as an adolescent (and perpetual kid) and an adult.

Things in my house that are dirty:

– everything
– me

Things in my house that are probably housing dangerous molds and spores and stuff:

– the fridge
– the toilets
– me

I really, really need to do some stuff here today but the past week and a half just caught up with me and now I can’t really imagine doing anything but watching old episodes of Mad Men.

Speaking of, and in honor of today’s uselessness, I give you kdiddy a la Mad Men:

The baby had his first soccer practice today. The coach freaked me out by openly talking shit on the parents of two kids who couldn’t be at today’s practice. Not cool. I had to spend the practice attempting to find a dry patch of ground that was in shade so that I wouldn’t combust, which means that I need to go whole hog on this soccer mom thing and buy a folding chair with an umbrella. I need something that will protect my pallor while I hand out Sunny D and say stuff like, “Gosh!” and “Golly!” and “Kick the shit out of it, kid!”

Maybe not that last one. I’m still learning.

I was badly in need of a haircut. I’m pretty sure my last trim was in February and the last two inches or so of my hair looked like spun sugar gone awry. I realized that I was not going to be able to squeeze an appointment in before I left for Chicago if I didn’t go Saturday, so I pounded the pavement of the main street here. The husband joked that I would come home with poofy bangs since the beauty experts in our area tend to cater to a more, erm, nostalgic crowd.

I had faith, however. What I did not have was an appointment and as you might imagine beauty salons are busy places on Saturday afternoons. In fact, the only place that could take a walk-in was a small place that was decked out with Dean Martin figurines and possessed at least half of the world’s supply of rollers. I was the youngest person there by about 40 years but hey these are trained professionals and scissors are scissors.

I think the results are just fine and there’s not a bouffant or blue hair in sight. And it came just in time for my date with the husband to the Maxwell show which was AWESOME. As I stated last night, I predict that that show will urge a small baby boom and that at least 100 babies were made last night. (None here, though, for the record. I will say that the last time we saw Maxwell live, I was quite pregnant and Maxwell had an indirect role in that development. :-p)

And I know that this might get me kicked out of the sisterhood, but Maxwell’s version of “This Woman’s Work” is amazing and absolutely slayed everyone last night.

I really wanted that song to be playing when I gave birth, and yes I had seen She’s Having a Baby a few too many times, but emergency C-sections tend to blow your soundtrack plans out of the water.

ANYWAY, I’m trying to get myself motivated to do stuff around the house before heading out to the thing later. I think you’ll be shocked to learn that it’s not going so well.

Earlier this week, the husband worked some magic with the Allen wrenches and my house, formerly The Land of Flat Packs, now has some shelving and bins and stuff. When we saw the first patch of floor in my son’s room, we cautiously whispered, “What is that?” Then, when we realized that it was the hideous green speckled carpeting that we had first encountered three years ago before the toy layer was set in place like sediment, there was much rejoicing.

We still have a number of things to do before we can move him into the smaller bedroom that we’ve been remodeling off and on since we bought the place. For your reference, here is what we were faced with when we got here (you’ll have to supply the cat urine smell yourself):

I really wonder why this look was so popular. It’s like living under an oppressive burnt marmalade regime.

And here’s what it looked like when the walls met the business ends our sledgehammers and crowbars:

Work and school and money have slowed the process considerably, but the small room now has insulation and new walls and new trim. I’m really pushing (read: whining) to have this room done by the end of the summer. Then I’ll get to take “after” pictures!

We went to see the new Harry Potter movie last night. It was okay. I was mostly entertained by the previews for 2012, which looks god-awful. Plus, John Cusack is the heroic lead, which is just kind of funny to me, and I think they should have played up this unlikely casting in the script and previews more. “John Cusack saves the world…and mends his broken heart. Unlucky in love but ready to kick some apocalyptic ass!”

We finally joined everyone in 2007 and watched Tropic Thunder last night, which was also okay. It definitely had its moments of brilliance, but I think I was expecting it to be a little more skewering of the movie industry.

On a final, totally unrelated note, when do kids learn how to ask hypothetical questions that…like…make sense? I’m getting really frustrated with my son asking me stuff like, “What if our car was blue?” THEN IT WOULD BE BLUE, DUDE! GAH! I know that I should appreciate his childish wonderment before that fateful day when he first calls me a bitch (you know it’s coming). But how do you explain to someone that hypothetical questions need to pose serious, altering conditions to a situation? Is there some sort of Theory for Tots class I can send him to?

When we were at my mother-in-law’s house last weekend, her friend brought over her puppy, Zeke. Zeke is a big baby and loves giving my kid puppy kisses.

Also note my kid’s chompers. Considering that the husband and I both had to get our teeth jackhammered into something resembling straight, I’m thinking that the local orthodontists are salivating in anticipation of my kid’s date with the Train Tracks of Doom and OMFG My Mouth Hurts.

But anyway PUPPY!

I want to smoosh both of their faces.

Also, my kid finished up a few weeks of ice skating lessons yesterday. I’m fairly certain that the recent pwnage that the Penguins handed out had something to do with this. He’s pretty good at it, though.

I’ve been ice skating twice, I think, and each time was a total disaster. I mean, a disaster if we’re measuring ice skating success by being able to move about the rink upright and not lying on the ice, crying. Ahem.

Jesus. On the left is my kid on Friday, his last day of first grade. On the right is the same kid, back in late August on his first day of first grade. A couple of things about this picture:

– Yes, I know that I need to find one spot for both him and I to stand when taking these pictures since the perspective is all kooky.

– You can see the growth in his legs. There used to be 3 or so inches between the tops of his socks and the bottoms of his shorts and now there’s like 12 feet.

– His expression on the left freaks me out. He reminds me a little bit of the boy from Deliverance during the dueling banjo scene where he gets all into it and grins maniacally.

Note: I’ve never actually seen Deliverance, just that scene, which I don’t think is weird. There are a few movies that I’ve never actually seen but know the famous scenes from. The husband thinks this is nonsense. Like, how I’ve never actually seen all of Risky Business, but I had seen the “Old Time Rock n Roll” scene. Or how I didn’t see Wall Street until last summer, but I had seen the “greed is good” scene. Related confession: I’ve never seen Carlito’s Way. I’m sorry.

– He gets his sock wearing style from his dad.

– How about those crumbling front steps? Aren’t those hot?

I think I was actually more excited about him being done with school for the summer than he was. I think mostly it’s because it’s one less thing that I have to worry about for a few months. It’s a break from fighting over homework and packing lunches and making sure that his uniforms are clean.

On a semi-related note, there were some misunderstandings about some of the outcry regarding the “working mom” episode of Momversation. If I wasn’t clear in my original post, I have no interest in putting out a call to arms for some bullshit sub-genre of the *gag* Mommy Wars. My issue was only that WOHMs were not represented when, I would assume, most working mothers are WOHMs. Dig?

Do you watch the Momversation episodes? If you’re not a parent, I can understand not really being interested, but if you are, you might want to check them out, despite the somewhat nauseating title. (I mean, seriously, because I’m a mom, I need to add a “mom” prefix to all nouns? “Well, let’s see, today I needed momceries so I went to the momstore and got mombread and momilk and mombutter.”)

One of the most recent episodes, “Are You a Stressed Working Mom?” was of particular interest to me, seeing as how my picture is in the dictionary next to “stressed working mom,” though you might not have recognized that it was me due to the blur caused by my rushing out the door and that red halo around my head caused by my stressed out hair.

That episode has already sparked some criticism, which was communicated very well, respectfully and succinctly, by the lovely Miss Zoot.

Before I get further into this, I want to make it clear that we are all operating on the fact (yes, FACT) that all mothers who are active participants in the lives of their families work their asses off. Whether you are a stay-at-home mom (SAHM), a work-at-home mom (WAHM), or a mom who works outside the home (MWWOH?), you are dealing with stress, performance anxiety, failures, and successes. Just because they may take different forms doesn’t mean that one is more important than the other. If you do not accept this fact, then please retreat to your alternate reality. Earth will miss you, no doubt.

I also want to state that folks who do not have children also face many of the same stresses, all of which deserve an equal platform, but I think we can all agree that things are just really different when you do have kids. Plus, since I had my son at such a young age, my entire professional life has been as some form of a working mother, so my perspective is entirely shaped by this fact. Cool?

Anyway, back to the video. It’s not like I expected the full spectrum of issues surrounding being a mother and having a career to be represented in a seven-minute video, but I did feel a little shafted because there are HUGE issues that just weren’t addressed. As far as this video being a good conversation starter for mothers who work primarily from home in their chosen/desired professions, then it hit the mark, and that’s totally valid.

But me and Miss Zoot and the legions of women whose working/parenting lives don’t look like those of the panelists weren’t really in there, which is too bad because bringing up that discussion would have unfolded the experiences of women who deal with really thought-provoking issues that affect ALL mothers EVERYWHERE. Like, wage gaps and inadequate benefits. Dealing with the prejudices that co-workers and bosses might have about mothers. Even just getting the culture of work to accept and celebrate that many kick-ass women have children and still desperately desire to have a career, especially when that career isn’t always one that can be done from home. Plus other stuff like the gap of child care between parents and how that burrows into gender roles that have been around forever.

These are not easy conversations to have but it’s important that they happen.

Perhaps most importantly is the conversation surrounding how exactly one accomplishes all that needs to happen and one of the moms, Lisa Belkin, in the Momversation asked about compromises, and I perked up, all ready to hear about, “Oh, yeah, this shirt has never ever been folded.” But it was more about career compromises which is another, “Oh TOTALLY!” aspect of this whole thing.

See, here’s where I’m coming from: I work full-time at a job that is good, but not exactly ideal for me and my career aspirations. I am the sole provider for my family as my husband has been working on his BS for the past several years and had the awesome timing of finishing college exactly when the economy made that dramatic, cartoonish bomb-dropping sound. I’m attending grad school part-time and as part of my requirements I’ve started working on an internship on a super-part-time basis. I also continue to free-lance write, though I’ve had to limit how much I put myself out there for projects simply due to a lack of time.

So my compromises are numerous every single day. I don’t sleep enough. I stress-eat. At around 8 p.m. I am completely out of steam so I don’t do things like prepare my coffee maker or the baby’s lunch for the next day, opting instead to watch TV. I hardly ever clean and when I do it’s simply to take the house down a notch from total squalor. On Sunday, I exercised for the first time in many months.

And these are all just the things that I’m willing to admit to right now.

As luck would have it, I have to get back to work since I took the time to write this while I was eating lunch. But that’s my contribution (momtribution?) to that aspect of the discussion.