A Little Early for Soul Searching

It's now a mere three entries into this over-sharing of my life that was supposed to be a fun, snarky, rant-fest in which I get to rag on people who aren't like me. So it's a little early, nay, way early, to insert a 'what does it all mean?' piece. But I'm on my way home from a week away, jammed in a plane with 150 other weary travelers, and I am sitting here thinking, "Shit. What am I doing?"

To be more specific, I am questioning my whole plan for the future, at least the most immediate part of it. I just came from several days with a friend who gives me a tiny glimpse into what having a sister might be. I then spent several more days at an extravagant  event with my mom that existed specifically to cater to my artsy hobby. During this time, of course, I've been separated from my family. So all these things conspire against me, in their own way, to make me question a few things that I've previously spouted off about in a loud, obnoxious manner. 

If I'm being honest, I will tell you that this event was a scrapbooking weekend. Okay, so that's done. I will briefly defend the whole scrapbooking issue by saying that this weekend included classes about photography and editing software; an address by an award-winning journalist with a story that will haunt my heart for a long time; and opportunities to use paper and fabric and ribbon and paint and glue and my hands. This is no joke, this brand of scrapbooking. These people are very, very talented mixed media artists, so back off me. 

The relevant deal with these particular scrapbooking chicks is that their leaders are largely blonde, gorgeous, successful women who appear to be about 32 years old. However, they all have somewhere between 4 and 9 kids, and one or two grandchildren. One of them joked that they get married at 12 - it's part of the religion. Based on the condition of their skin, I'm tempted to believe them, because it's the only math that allows me to believe they are mothers of mothers.  All weekend long I'm looking at pictures of these large families and rows of beautiful children, born to women who also manage to have their own seriously successful companies, product lines, design houses, and teaching careers. 

While at the event, I overhear one of my friends say, "I believe it's important to have lineage that is both horizontal and vertical." She was explaining why she needed to have more than one child. She has two boys - grown now - who love each other and will be there for each other as the family ages. During the passing of the years, these young men may reinvent themselves to the world, but not to one another. Your siblings remember who you were before you were smart enough to try to be someone else. 

But this concern, this idea, isn't new to me. I've been here, examined it, and put it aside many times. This time, the crack in my one-child policy comes during a week away from that only child, our longest separation since her birth. I am weakened by her absence; missing the feel of her skin and the sound of her tiny voice, the things that normally keep me grounded in the present. Someday she will be gone from my side, and in fact, she is already beginning this process at age two. It's lonely, it's scary, the idea of it. An easy fix is to have another baby. 

I follow this train of thought, flying down the track at break neck speed, causing a series of inevitable ideas that if pursued would change my whole life. No sense in starting graduate school this week! Why take on the loans, the expense? No, I'll just stay home and have these imaginary babies and make tons of nifty craft projects to sell on Etsy. Yes, that's what I'll do! I just spent a weekend getting so charged with inspiration that the very idea of doing anything other than opening my own studio seems like a complete waste of my incredible and obvious talent. 

I actually get excited for a minute. How am I going to tell my husband about this change of plan? Sure, he'll be pissed. But seriously, he should be so grateful that I figured this out two days before grad school starts. We can probably get most of our money back! During this little epiphany, which actually started a day earlier and was now way out of control, I was interrupted by a row of three little girls, sisters, seated behind me on the plane. The smallest spent the bulk of the three hour flight kicking the hell out of my seat. She broke up the routine at the end to loudly fight with her sisters. And so the spell was broken. 

I remembered where I was - hurtling towards home. Closer every minute to my own reality, and further from the alternate one presented so attractively in Arizona. My husband, a saint who had taken over for an entire week so I could take a break and prepare for this next adventure, was waiting for me. My daughter, the real one, the one that is here now, is sleeping in her little bed and I will walk in and wake her up and snuggle her. Our life is good; no, great; and it's the one we chose. I can't live someone else's life, even if it looks really cool, especially when you add a glittery scrapbook border to the family portrait.  

I decided, just now, to stop obsessing about the composition of our family. I think about my friend, Nicole, with whom I spent three too-short days this week. She is my sister. She saw me reinvent myself once, and she remembers who I was, and will certainly remind me of it, should I need reminding. Together again, we fell into an old, easy rhythm. No amount of time passes that is too much for us to overcome in about three minutes. 

I think about my brother's girlfriend. She has a little boy - a two year old boy that has captured our hearts with so much force that it actually brings tears to my eyes to think of them ever leaving us. Slowly, and also somehow suddenly, I have come to think of him as my nephew. I think about my husband's family, his wonderful, wonderful family that I am incredibly blessed to have added to my own.

I realize what this whole freak out is about. It's about me being scared of the future, of this big commitment we've made. Two years in a rigorous graduate program will mean a rigid schedule, a tight budget, and sacrifices on the part of my family. It means choosing one path over another, taking a leap, gambling. And I'm going to have a hard time appreciating the sights on this road if I'm wasting time worrying about the view I might have from somewhere else. So maybe I didn't figure out the meaning of life on this plane trip, and maybe I wrote a really long and embarrassingly emotional blog while I was at it. But I do know that I can't wait to get home to my perfect life, and leave everyone else behind to worry about their own.

editor's note: Snarky, bitchy commentary to return next week. Several days back at school should likely give Penny something to complain about. 

Time Management

I've always had a nagging feeling that I'm not particularly good at managing my time. Procrastination has long been an issue of mine, and my secret superhero ability to both read and produce written work at an accelerated rate is the only reason I've been able to graduate college and maintain a job. At the last, most desperate hour, I am able to quickly pull together a reasonable facsimile of a finished product. 

Now that I've been navigating the waters of stay-at-home-mom-ness, I'm finding my quick read skills aren't particularly handy. Aside from the occasional label reading, there's not much time to be saved in my current daily tasks of grocery shopping and laundry. God knows the little beast won't allow me to speed read through bedtime stories. 

On a good day, I manage to get myself and my toddler dressed and fed. If I'm feeling motivated, I'll throw in a field trip or a craft project. (Bear in mind that I consider eating doughnuts at Hannaford a field trip and coloring on junk mail with broken crayons a pretty good art project.)

I would bob merrily along in the waters of ignorance, feeling rather satisfied with my work, if it weren't for Facebook. God damn Facebook. Not just for the hours wasted each week online, but for the cheerful status updates I am constantly bombarded with. Allegedly, there are women out there who are not only getting dressed, but completing home improvement updates, performing minor surgery, and whipping up gourmet meals. If the following posts look familiar to you, you know what I'm talking about:

"So far this morning have gone to swim lessons with Peyton, baked three loaves of bread, repainted the garage, and waxed my own bikini. Later we're off for school shopping and then back home to host a block party for the neighborhood. Fun day!!"

"Just sealed the driveway! Back inside to finish a gluten-free, organic five course meal for tonight's 17 guests! After everyone goes home I'll wax the floor and shampoo the rugs!!"

"Up at 4:30 a.m. to run five miles to the gym and catch a Zumba class, then back home to clean the house for my combination Scentsy/Pampered Chef/Fake Handbag party. Hoping I have time to finish tailoring the triplets' Halloween costumes!"

I suspected that my days were just not adding up. As an experiment, I recently started tracking my time. Here's how I spent a typical August day:

4:00 am - Awakened by small creature climbing in my bed and stealing my pillow. Go back to sleep.

7:15 am - Reawakened by aforementioned creature patting my face and yelling, "Wake up - It's sunny out!"

8:00 am - Roll out of bed after sufficient time lolling around like the two adorable, lazy pigs we are.

8:15 am - Put up brief and rather uninspired fight about toddler eating breakfast in front of TV; turn on PBS Kids; toss her a carnation instant breakfast and some grapes.

8:30 am - Pick up my shorts off floor from previous day, put on; find clean outfit to replace toddler's current princess costume. 

8:31 am - Buckle princess in car for preschool drop off.

8:32 am - Run back inside for sippy cup... 8:33 am - Run back inside for sunglasses... 8:34 am - Run back inside for phone.

8:45 am - Enjoy a child drop off so fraught with separation anxiety that child throws up three times. Proceed to parking lot and throw up a few times myself.

9:15 am - Accidentally arrive at mall full 45 minutes before Apple store opens, so park it on a mall couch and use Apple's wireless signal to spend 2 hours online while simultaneously gossiping on my cell phone.

12:00 pm - Pick up a grateful, sobbing toddler and head home to finish the lunch she refused to eat during her hunger strike; tuck her in for nap.

1:15 pm - Skim debris from kiddie pool, whip out pool float, and provide welcome distraction to work-from-home-husband by floating topless in said pool for remainder of nap time. Send several important and pressing text messages.

3:30 pm - Get small creature up from nap; realize day is nearly over and desperately pull frozen rock of meat out of freezer for dinner, speed clean kitchen, and poor day's first glass of wine.

4:00 pm - Sitting in swingset 'tree fort', kicking it with toddler and hollering for daddy to quit working already.

Upon review of my time diary, it's rather clear that I'm not living up to my full potential. I could have easily fit in a nap myself if I had skipped the errand and moved pool time up. Either way, this schedule is hardly Facebook-worthy. Mulling over my day's accomplishments, I start to wonder if I just need to begin speaking a different language. Perhaps all those super moms out there are taking some liberties? 

Applying my secret decoder ring, I have developed the following, social media-ready update: 

"Today I worked on L's transition to fall preschool, built a new computer with some spare parts, and did some modeling! Just cleaned kitchen top to bottom and am headed outside for some exercise with the family before home-cooked meal! Whew, full day!!" 

Now that I can compete, I better go log in. Well, as soon as I finish photoshopping my new profile picture... 

My One and Only

There is a pressing issue I'd like to discuss with the legions of baby pushers out there, and it is this: only children. Since when is it appropriate to approach a complete stranger on the street, paw at their adorable two year old, and demand to know when more offspring are forthcoming? This happens to me on a regular basis, not to mention the assault by well-meaning coworkers, family members, and friends. 

Let's be perfectly honest here - I'm not that great of a parent. I don't need to add another child to the mix to have the horrifying realization that we'd all be better off if I only had one. I can see it with my mind's eye quite clearly, and it's not a pretty picture. Right now I have all I can manage to keep my marriage, child, and personal agendas afloat. I'm happy with my small family, as is my husband. So why does this make me feel so guilty? 

In a 2008 commentary, Carl Zimmerman examines the growing trend of only children. He points out that natural selection isn't just about having a lot of offspring. "The more offspring an animal has, the less energy it can give each one. If a hawk can't supply its chicks with enough food, they may not live long enough to have chicks of their own." Obviously, having another child isn't going to kill my first daughter. But what toll might it have on me? 

I enjoy having time for things outside of childrearing. I've noticed that women seem to be defensive about their mothering - we want to make sure everyone knows we love being mothers and that our kids come first. News flash: this isn't anything to brag about. Of course my daughter comes first - she's two years old. She would die if I didn't put her first. That doesn't mean I don't want to be a close second. 

In our constant need to validate ourselves, we attack the choices of other parents. I myself have been guilty of ragging on women who I think leave their kids too long at daycare, and alternately, those that spend too much time mothering. In the world of bitchy-ass women, you can never win. 

One of the most irritating things about admitting to having an 'only' is the fear that people think I don't like being a parent. I find myself giving people this little speech about how I love being a mom and I want to focus on our one daughter. As if people assume I'm not happy with my baby because I don't want any more. And that's my own baggage.  

I admire women who deftly manage three kids, a career, and a vivacious sex life with their admiring spouses. I'm just not that much of a go-getter. This isn't an attack on your choice, just a request to respect mine. So the next time you see someone with a gorgeous toddler, don't bug them. It might be me, and I'm too busy to talk to you - I'm with my daughter. I may not pass this way again, and I don't want to miss a thing.