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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.

If I had written out an itinerary for yesterday, it would look something like this:

8:30ish – 9:30 a.m.: Wake up, swear a little for not getting up a little earlier since the baby has Little League parade in an hour. Rush through breakfast and dressing and whatnot.

9:30 – 10:30 a.m.: Parade through neighborhood with the baby and 200 other cuties in knee socks and cleats. Forget to put sunscreen on. Face, chest, and arms burn quite nicely.

10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.: Loiter around ball field for awhile, waiting for LL season opener to begin. My parents, my grandmother, my husband’s parents, and his grandmother all show up for the big day. I am relieved to see my dad looking and acting pretty healthy, despite being in the midst of chemo. Everyone gets along, which is amazing, and I choose to chuckle at my grandmother’s paranoid insistence that my son stand absolutely still to minimize his chances of getting horrifically hurt by running down the hill and climbing the bleachers. Local politicians are politicking, shaking hands, and helping to hand out hot dogs and Little Hugs, including the mayor. I notice that after a certain amount of time spent amongst “my people,” I start to sound like Gina from Greg & Donny.

12:00 – 2:30 p.m.: Play ball! Baby does well in his first real game. Even takes the opportunity to slide into home. Teammate hits a grand slam (the Pirates should consider hiring him) and their team wins. Sweet! Somewhere in this time period, my cat comes across a half-drunk cup of chocolate milk that the baby left sitting in the living room and knocks it onto the floor, leaving a nice brown splash pattern on the rug that will dry and set very nicely while we’re gone.

2:30 – 3:00 p.m.: Run home, shower my dusty kid and send him off with husband’s dad to go bike-riding so I can work on homework.

3:00 – 5:00 p.m.: Half-heartedly work on final project for school. Try not to freak out over how much crap I have to do in the next two weeks.

5:00 – 5:30 p.m.: Cat curls up on my notebooks, gives me a look and purrs. My eyelids start to droop.

5:30 – 6:00 p.m.: I give in to the cat’s hypnotic powers and take a much needed nap.

6:00 – 7:00 p.m.: Get up and shower since the husband will be home soon and we’re going on a date to the drive in to see Adventureland. Husband arrives home and cleans the car, specifically the windshield so we can see the movie, while I’m fighting with a pair of shorts that totally fit me last year but are now throwing up a lot of resistance. My waist, much like the universe, is ever-expanding.

7:00 p.m.: Husband and I set off toward the movie. I’m excited since I’ve never been to the drive in.

7:30 – 8:15 p.m.: Hit horrendous traffic due to a poorly-planned detour taking motorists away from construction happening en route to the airport. We go back and forth on whether or not we can actually make the movie, which starts at 8:10. We finally decide to just drive out there and if we miss it we’ll go to a later showing at a regular theater near our house.

8:15 p.m.: Hear hideous squealing of brakes behind us and then suddenly realize that my head has tried to go from upright to 90 degree angle with my body, somehow without taking any path between the two positions. I say things like, “Oooohhhh,” and “Auuuughhhh,” as I realize that we were harshly rear-ended.

8:16 – 8:30 p.m.: Of course, our new insurance cards are not in the car but we get the other guy’s information. I eventually stop shaking. This is the second car accident I’ve been in. The first was when I was 16 and riding with a newly-licensed friend. That accident was so minor that I didn’t even realize what had happened until my friend tearfully filled me in. This one, while still very minor, was much more frightening and painful and gives me new perspective on how much serious car accidents suck. I burned my foot a few years ago by spilling boiling water on it. It was a small area but was tremendously painful and took months to heal and gave me new perspective on how much it sucks to be a serious burn victim. So, burns and car accidents are officially off of my bucket list because fuck that ish.

8:30 – 9:00 p.m.: We’re definitely way too late for the drive in movie, so we make our way to a theater a few miles away. We have some time to kill, so we go to Sonic and I note that at least we’re getting some drive in experience tonight.

9:00 – 9:15 p.m.: We get ready to make our way across the shopping center to the movie theater and discover that the car won’t start. AWESOME. Husband says, “Fuck it. We’re going to the movie. I don’t care,” and enlists a fellow Sonic patron to help him push the car into the parking lot across the way.

9:15 – 9:30 p.m.: Husband and I walk to the movie theater and get into a quick argument because he says something that I don’t hear, gets mad at me for not hearing, and WON’T JUST REPEAT WHAT HE SAID. GAAAHHHH.

9:30 – 9:45 p.m.: Wait in line for tickets because the theater made the brilliant managerial decision to have one ticketing booth open on a Saturday night. Husband goes in to grab seats while I go to the concession stand, which also has only one register open. I come very close to starring in my own episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm while the young girls in front of me order 60 overpriced items and then have to rethink their entire order when they hear that the Icee machine is broken. A teenager with a pitiable case of acne and a large crystal around his neck opens another register. The people in front of me go to him, while the rest of us stay in one line, wordlessly agreeing to alternate registers as they become available. Except for the guy behind me who goes to the new register, essentially cutting in front of me. I hate humanity.

9:46 p.m.: I angrily shuffle into the theater to find that I’ve missed the first five minutes of the movie. Fucking whatever, man.

9:46 – 11:30 p.m.: The movie is good and very, very sweet and makes Kennywood look even more magical and awesome. I love Pittsburgh.

11:30 – 12:00 p.m.: We wait by our car for the father-in-law to arrive with jumper cables. We study the damage to the rear bumper and the husband says, “I wonder if that will make it hard to close the trunk.” As he says this, he opens the trunk, which makes an alarming THWONK noise. The husband grins at me, because we both know that the trunk will no longer be closing. He tries to get me to stand on the bumper while he jumps on the trunk lid. I fear for my toes and the few people still at the shopping center wonder what the hell we’re doing. The husband and I have to chuckle at the day’s series of events and I give him some kisses because we went on a date, dammit, in spite of everything.

12:00 – 12:30 p.m.: The father-in-law arrives with jumper cables and we’re able to drive home. When we finally arrive at our house, five hours after we left to go see a two-hour movie, I realize that I wasn’t wearing my seat belt, despite being in a car accident just a few hours prior.

Sunday: Hoping absolutely nothing happens today. Edit: Nevermind. The baby is having breathing trouble and is now passed out in bed. Highly unusual. AWESOME.

Still more rough days trying to get through this semester. Yeah, there’s light at the end of the tunnel, but there’s some old lawn furniture and a bear and some marbles and a field of sharpened bamboo between here and there.

But obviously, what I have to go through in the next few weeks is nothing compared to what other mamas have to go through the rest of their days. So, in recognizing how very, very lucky I am and how not even the greatest deed would make me worthy of my kid, I want to remember this goofy little moment that we shared earlier this evening that might otherwise be forgotten if I hadn’t gotten that harsh reminder to do whatever I can to relish it.

For Easter, we gave the baby a few books out of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, including the Do-It-Yourself Book. He was filling out the page on his predictions and got stuck on, “In twenty years, cars will run on ________.” The baby thought about this for awhile and finally said, “Cars will run on…sidewalks!”

Thanks, dude.

It doesn’t even matter that I didn’t know Heather or Mike at all, not through blogs or Twitter or anything. All that matters is that they lost their daughter. And there are no words that can convey how sad that is.

I love this.

I especially love how everyone is so amused at the camera’s presence and the men who raise their hats and chuckle.

Something about it reminds me of this:

View Larger Map

Posting is still slow around these parts, I know. I’ve been working my dupa off this semester, this past week in particular, and had a mini-meltdown Wednesday morning. Just one of those, “I…just…don’t want to do all of this anymore! Hwwheeee!” kind of crying episodes that I have at least once a semester. I met with one of my instructors this morning to go over some XML basics and was wildly comforted that she didn’t think that I was a total moron. She has a daughter around the same age as the baby, and works, and teaches, so I think she recognized that, “I’m falling apart,” look in my eyes. I don’t honestly think that I’m going to crash and burn, but I guess I don’t always believe it.

Anyway, when I do have a minute here and there, I don’t feel like voicing anything, preferring instead to retreat to quiet. I spent a few hours the other day looking at the pictures on Shorpy and marveling at how alive the pictures seem and how a little twitch in the universe could send me there.

I love this picture of Pittsburgh in 1941 so much.

rainy pittsburgh 1941

It’s raining, of course, just as it has been here for the past few days. But if you lean in, you can almost hear the drops slapping onto the street and bouncing off the roofs of the cars. I can almost smell the refreshment of an early summer storm and grin because it’s almost here.

I was instantly awestruck when the nurse in the OR first handed my son to me. I think I was still reeling from the crazy emergency that became his birth and too doped up on medication to recognize the feelings washing over me at first. But as things settled down (and I came down) I started to notice the heart-wrenching love that I felt for him. It’s hard to describe. It was new and different but at the same time it felt familiar, like it had been there all along. I just didn’t realize that I could feel that way about someone.

When I first saw him, it was like everything slowed to a complete stop for just an instant, but an instant that seemed to stretch on forever. Everything that I understood about life and time and love ended. And when the earth started spinning again a few milliseconds later it was in a new direction or had switched tracks. Even in the next few weeks, when things got really dark inside my head, that feeling was my touchstone.

I know that not everyone has that same experience. I know that for some people, for whatever reason, that love takes time to make itself known and for others it never really materializes or it takes on a different form. That’s just how things go.

Occasionally, I wonder what it would take for that feeling to end. What would be the one thing that my son could do that would damage or destroy the love that I have for him. I’ve come up blank so far, even when I’ve imagined some really horrible things. It’s just not possible for me to excise something that has been a part of me as long as I’ve been ME.

But apparently for some, that love, or the sheen of it anyway, is something tacked on. Perhaps clicked into place like a Lego piece, relatively easy to remove, or perhaps a brick set in place with chewing gum.

I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how a person gets to such a lonely place. I don’t understand how a person can witness true love and the desire to extend that love and be so fucking terrified of being judged by some outside group of people that can’t possibly know your relationship with your child that they’ll push it away.

The ugly words that those parents said to their child sound like giant pickaxes hacking away at their very essence. The tears that they cried while saying it…I don’t think they’re the tears of martyrs doing what must be done in the name of their hateful god. I think they’re the tears of someone being ripped apart. But to admit that to their child and to themselves would be weak, unfaithful. And suddenly what they’ve been told to believe over what they know of themselves and of love doesn’t make any sense at all. And how frightening must that be.

I’m not a better mother because I can’t imagine ever having that conversation with my child. I’m not a better mother than anyone. I don’t know what it would take, but I would certainly know if I was selling myself out.

The baby had an allergic reaction last night. For those of you who are new to this corner of the internet, my son has a tree nut allergy. Luckily, we haven’t had much trouble with it and tree nuts are not as pervasive as peanuts, so he doesn’t have to live in a bubble or whatever. Last night was actually only the second time that his allergy flared up, the first time being when we found out that he had a food allergy.

When we go to restaurants, we always ask the staff to check to make sure that no nuts are used in whatever dish the baby is getting and so far this has kept us in the clear. But probably what happened was there was something nearby that got in his food. We had his EpiPen with us and for a few minutes had this vague panic of, “Do we jab him?” But we didn’t since he wasn’t having any trouble breathing. Our poor waitress stopped over to see how our meals were (they were delicious, rogue nuts be damned) and had the misfortune of coming upon the scene of us sitting in silence, watching the baby’s lips swell and uncertainly holding a large, green shot near his thigh. We drove to the hospital and just kind of waited. Eventually the swelling started going down and the baby reported that he felt fine. We took him home, gave him some Benadryl, and put him to bed and checked on him every couple minutes.

I am, of course, tremendously relieved that he is okay and am hoping that these symptoms are as bad as it gets. Avoiding anaphylactic shock would be tops.

It was just one of those moments where it was like, “Of COURSE you’re having a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction. WHY THE HELL NOT? I haven’t had a panic attack in at least 15 minutes, so I was due.” I’ve been working on a mid-term paper for one of my classes for several days now and to say that it’s stressing me out would be an understatement. On Tuesday, around 11 a.m., this particular academic nightmare will be over. I have another, large-ish assignment due on Thursday that I haven’t even looked at because I just can’t deal at the moment.

I never got this stressed about school until I started grad school (and I have the QPAs to show for it!). But I guess the stakes are just much higher this time around. Plus, I have to juggle so much more. It’s really wearing me down. After this semester, I have one class I’ll take in the summer and then one in the fall. Obviously, not having to deal with two classes at once will be a huge relief. I’m just trying to hang on until the end of the year when I will finally be done. It just sucks because I’m wishing for the time to go faster so I can get to a relatively easier phase in life, but in doing so I’m wishing away large chunks of my kid’s childhood. I actually apologized to him the other night for being so grumpy and impatient and busy. I’m doing all this so that I can make a better life for me and my family, but I guess in the thick of it the cost seems way too high.

Anyway, I didn’t mean to get all morose and I didn’t mean for this to sound like, “My kid had an allergic reaction and it was really scary for ME ME ME IT’S ALL ABOUT ME!” I’m glad my kid’s okay, obviously. And I know that this will all be over soonish and it will all be worth it. I will have a pretty kick-ass MA at the end of all this, after all. It’s just that this particular gauntlet of job + writing + school + school + school + being broke + whatever other crap has gotten really old.

First off, I apologize in advance for a post that’s generally a downer at a time when folks are trying to focus on happiness, but I have to get this off my chest.

The other day, Tracey sent this link to the MamaPop writers. A group of teenagers in Ukraine brutally murdered people and took video of themselves in the act. A brief discussion among us followed, mostly expressing disgust at the actions of the teenagers and at the details that were available. Everyone mentioned reading a bit of the transcript, but not being able to look at the video that was included.

I looked.

Only for a few seconds, but long enough to realize what I was watching and what I was doing by watching.

I’m fascinated by death and particularly by deaths that are wrapped in crime. One of my favorite books is Shots in the Dark and I think post-mortem photography in general is an incredible art form. I’m not sure why. I’ve pored over those pictures and contemplated how peaceful the subjects look, even if their deaths were violent. Everything in their life led up to that moment and we all share that fate. We will all be stared at by people looking down at us and we will be unable to change their perception.

I’m also a huge fan of all manner of fucked up movies. I have my limits, of course…I’m thinking specifically of Audition and Japanese horror in general. Something about that type of cinema just doesn’t sit right with me. But I’ve seen some rather unspeakable things thanks to movies.

Somehow, looking at still images, especially in black and white, and watching films of actors, even if they’re based on a true story, is extremely different than watching that video. Perhaps the crime photos seem more kosher since they’re taken by a third party who is actually performing a service.

I told Tracey that I didn’t even know why I watched it. Morbid curiosity. Voyeuristic temptation. And I think, prior to clicking “play,” I didn’t totally believe it was what it was purported to be. What did I stand to gain by watching such a thing? Validation that such things, unimaginable as they may be, actually occur? Scratching some unacceptable itch?

I’ve always been fascinated and terrified by serial killers and people who murder for no apparent reason, at random. They set their own criteria, identify those who sin in their eyes, and deal them their punishment. From the time that I understood what these people did and how they did it, I’ve always been at least a little afraid that I would end up one of those random people. Our house being burgled last year by a man who crept into our house while we slept just a few feet above only exacerbated those fears. I’m still not able to watch my fucked up movies without feeling at least a little bit of panic.

The things that I saw in those seconds of jerky, cellphone video. I saw the nauseating glee. I saw beings who resembled humans and maybe once, a long time and a different reality ago, were humans that went grocery shopping and paid bills and stopped at red lights. And I saw…a face. Or something, a bloody, desecrated, disgusting, violated mess that used to be a face. And I could still see the question of, “Why?” running through a mind that was soon to stop functioning completely. And I could hear the echo of, “Why not me? Yet?” in the back of my brain.

It disturbed me in a way that I didn’t know possible. My worst nightmare came true for someone else and I watched it happen. I didn’t wield that hammer, but I might as well have stood there, in that cold, bleak forest, and watched it unfold.

By the time my brain said, “No. Stop,” I hadn’t assured myself of the slim chances of this ever happening to me or someone I know. I hadn’t cured myself of my paranoia. And I didn’t feel like I had a deeper understanding of how messed up this world is.

I had only accomplished one thing: watching someone be murdered.

Maybe I was stroking that part of my mortality that tries to deny itself, the part that likes to believe that I will call the shots, and if I cannot, I will call the shots for someone else. What separates me from Them?

I suppose what separates me is that I felt the urge to apologize after I chose to silence the giddy foreign language and the moist gargling breaths and the crunching leaves and the plastic bags. When I stopped, a different ending was still possible. Media feeds me truth and lies and joy and pain. And the brutal epiphany that reality and my place in it is more fluid than I’d like to admit. I’m sorry.

Long live the new flesh.

There was nothing on TV this morning so I started watching I Love Lucy and while I was watching it, I was looking at Google Reader and there were TWO Lucy-related secrets today. Weird, no?

A friend of the husband’s was in town last night to play records at AVA and he was supposed to stay the night at our house. So, I spent pretty much all day cleaning. Our house is always pretty messy and dusty since we never really have time or energy to clean. The husband is, of course, out of commission with his hand so I was on my own and had a pretty sobering moment when I realized that I couldn’t possibly clean the whole house myself and had to determine which parts were the nastiest/most potentially embarrassing.

About 15 minutes after I finished cleaning the bathrooms and was sprawled out on the bed panting, the husband came home from work and announced that he had to poop. After he emerged, I whined, “I don’t know why you always do that right after I do the toilets.”

“That’s why I don’t like cleaning,” he replied. “It’s a Sisyphean effort. You’re Sisyphus.”

“Yes, and you’re this huge rock that shits all over my squeaky clean toilets.”

And then…THEN. The husband’s friend called and said that he was meeting up with “a friend” in town and would be staying at a hotel, after all.

GAHHHH

Well, at least the house is clean. I guess. Whatever.

In continuing in my Suzy Homemaker routine, I’m baking some homemade Nilla Wafers. They’re my dad’s favorite cookie and his birthday was Friday, so I’m making some for him. I hope they don’t suck.