Cognitive Dissonance:

Is watching a woman in a full-length fur coat, waiting for a $5.00 latte, scream about how oppressed she is. So loudly that all conversation in the tiny mall coffee shop comes to the screeching halt, as none of the other customers are able to hear each other.

Scenes from a Mall

I'm still regrouping.

As part of the regrouping process, I have taken part-time seasonal(1) work staffing a calendar kiosk run out of a large national bookstore chain. This affords me plenty of time to watch mall life unfold and write tiny notes about what I see and think on pieces of register tape, tiny sheets of notepaper and on the back of half-sheets of invitations to a store's open house. (2)

The kiosk which I am staffing is in a small mall located in suburban Pittsburgh. The stores a mix of independent and upscale chains such as Restoration Hardware, Williams Sonoma and Anthropologie.

Most weekdays, my pacing around the kiosk is punctuated by the click-swish sound of hands washing mahjong tiles at the nearby tables. Almost daily, groups of four women take over the tables, set out the racks and shuffle tiles. Some bring a thick, felt cloth to muffle the sound of tiles on formica. They bring over trays of lunch from the nearby Panera and spend the afternoon playing. On breaks they wander over to the kiosk to look at the calendars and offer up bits of information about their lives. One woman, a thin, wiry individual with orange-red hair confesses that she comes every week, she is widowed and playing gives her something to do.

The customers offer up all kinds of information to me. They talk about their children, grandchildren and favorite pets. Some stop on the way into the movie theatre and return after the show to give me a short review and pick up a calendar as a Christmas gift.

There are crazies as well. One man asked me why anyone would purchase a calendar of Michelle Obama, as she is a “jerk” and went on a rant about how “we” paid for her Harvard education. I politely demurred that we stocked calendars for all tastes. Dissatisfied with my answer, he sat down at a table, turned the chair so it would be directly in line of sight of the cash wrap and proceeded to glower at me for the 20 minutes it took the upstairs Chinese restaurant upstairs to bring his take-out order to him. Another co-worker warned me that there she has been sexually harassed by a man, who followed her around the kiosk while telling here what he would like to “do” to her. When I asked her why she did not call mall security, she confessed that she did not know if that was okay.

(1)I worked for the same organization for 1.5 years in the early 2000's while J was under and unemployed. I was hired as a seasonal employee and the manager was happy with my work and asked me if I would continue part-time. I worked there until J and I moved to Pittsburgh.

(2)The invitations are placed on open tables by the owner of the florist/tchotchke shop located directly in front of the kiosk. She is a cranky, cranky woman who spends a lot of time complaining about the state of her business and the fact that her customers are “crowded” by the portable display pods in front of the kiosk. Many of the tchotchkes she sells are of a genre hereby dubbed “christian, inspirational”, which would not be a problem except for the fact that a significant demographic of mall customers are older Jewish women who have (I suspect) little use for tin figures of santa claus and gold-glittery tin signs that proclaim “Jesus is King!” She bought several scripture-a-day calendars, stating that she gives them as Christmas gifts to her girlfriends every year.

Law of Unemployment Number One

Unemployed + uninsured + visit to the dentist = 1 cavity and a $400.00 bill.

The upside? The bill was the most painful part of the experience.

Marshall's Greentree Road, 3:00 PM

Wednesday afternoon is the time to wander the Marshall's on Greentree Road if you are interested in observing the cross section of humanity that is the wealthy housewives of Mt. Lebanon. It is also the place to be if you want to come within inches of colliding with a former Penguin turned color announcer known in the Pittsburgh area as the “Ol' Two-Niner”.

The housewives are a scary lot. Unfriendly, dressed to the nines, they stalk the store and stake a claim at the racks of designer clothes at cut-rate prices, hovering over the large, button down w/collar white shirts with scary intensity, sending out a “I'll cut you” vibe to any individual tactless enough to attempt to reach for that size 12 Calvin Klein suit jacket and matching size 14 skirt and ramming into me with their miniature sized shopping carts, pausing to say “excuse me” after bruising my poor hip. The “excuse me” is delivered unrepentantly, a two-word verbal dressing down meant to convey how nervy I am, to be standing in the aisle, blocking her way to the size 6's.

I feel very large next to these women as I rummage through the size 12 and 14 pants, wondering when I will have enough energy to push myself back into shape and reminding myself that even if I am able to achieve some sort of “shape” my hips may be unwilling to allow me into anything smaller than a twelve.

I watch a 14 year old girl try on a short, red strapless dress for an upcoming homecoming dance. Her father comments that she looks sexy. As I enter the dressing rooms to try on a stack of pants and a couple of suits, I tell her to lean over and shake, to make sure the strapless top stays put.

He talks about how he is raising her on his own. It is an excellent ploy, as he and his daughter receive more female attention then either know what to do with. One woman suggests Spanx to wear underneath the dress, to give it a cleaner line. Another gives him options and advice about shoes. As he talks on about her, how conscious she is of her body, her voice floats out from the dressing room where she is changing back into street clothes

“Dad, you know I can hear every word you are saying, don't you?”

The suits don't fit without major alterations to both pants and jacket. No money for alterations now, no suit. The pants look terrible, cheap and ill fitting. I sigh and return everything to the attendant.

I wander a little longer, seeking pajamas for Baby Alien. At 9.5 months old, he measures 34 inches long and towers over most of his mates in the baby room at daycare. I've already looked in several thrift shops, but have not yet gathered the patience necessary to dig through the poorly organized sections of baby wear, a puzzlement as the adult clothes are neatly organized by color and size.

I've been tired a great deal this week. I sleep a lot during the day, my body's way of recovering from the months of stress it has been carrying. Next week Baby Alien drops to part time daycare and I am making plans for the days he is home.

Pushed Out

On the 22 of this month I became officially unemployed. For the first time in my life, since I started working at the age of twelve, I deliberately walked off a job.

It is cold comfort that I choose this status voluntarily.

It is cold comfort that Pennsylvania is an “at-will” state and my contract allowed me to exercise an option to leave their employ without notice.

It is cold comfort that the majority of my coworkers were upset and threw a cocktail hour in my honor on Friday evening.

It is cold comfort that my former employer framed my resignation in such a way as to imply that I was fired and made a major error in the subject line of the email he sent out (1) to the rest of the company announcing my departure. I swiftly dispatched the notion that I was fired as untrue and requested that they tell anyone who believed that I was fired the truth.

It is cold comfort that one of the most libertarian, pro-business of my friends was the first to suggest, without having listened to any analysis of the situation from myself or J, that I was pushed out deliberately because I had a baby. He also, in all seriousness, suggested that I sue them into non-existence, pointing out that “they don't make enough money to settle and you'll bankrupt them if you sue”.

J and I don't have the money to sue, but it was interesting how to witness how quickly an individual's professed values change when it concerns people he or she knows in real life.

I can't prove that my former employer pushed me out. Instructions were always given verbally, never in writing. Negative feedback, on the other hand, was given in writing and usually involved some element of, for lack of better phrasing, “making shit up.”

It has been five days and I'm still emotionally and physically exhausted. The teeth grinding has stopped and the migraines are gone, but I feel achy and sore and bruised all over.

And I have no idea what I'm going to do next.

(1) He referenced an employee fired in January instead of myself.

F(***) You, Go to (****)

Note: In case the title isn't enough of a warning, this post will be a rant. Possibly a profanity-laced rant. I would like to think that the profanity used in this post will be judiciously chosen, well placed and not suffer from overuse, but I make no promises.

I've reached the saturation point of bullshit that I can handle. So much so that the driver who honked at me this morning under the misperception I was taking up too much of his lane (never mind the parked cars that kept me from pulling over or the fact he was going approximately 15 miles over the speed limit) reduced me to tears. Because of the stress of the last several weeks, I’m tearing through my extremely limited supply of migraine medication at an unprecedented rate. As my last checkup included a demoralizing lecture from the nurse practitioner on my BMI being too high and a grilling on why I needed to take sumatriptan instead of Excedrin Migraine (1), I was not eager to call and ask for more medication. Fortunately, I received the answering service and left my request in the form of a message.

In addition to being placed on indefinite probation, my supervisor oh-so-casually mentioned to me on Thursday that they were relieving me of my responsibility to facilitate an annual client meeting as they had decided to “go in a different direction with the group”. This was followed up with an email from the unofficial leader of the group (2), who thanked me for my service.

And promptly assigned responsibility for the meeting to an individual who, slated to present at the last client gathering, bailed two hours before it was scheduled to take place without submitting any of his materials and without telling me (the person who was supposed to get the materials for incorporation into the meeting) directly.

An individual who has created for himself quite a reputation for pawning his work off on his all female team who he endearingly refers to as “my girls”. If I'm still employed when the next meeting comes around, I am going to get a great deal of pleasure out of saying “NO” to organizing slides and taking notes.

I was bluntly honest with my supervisor. I admitted that I was not terribly upset that I was being relieved of this particular duty, as the leader of the group is especially difficult to work with (2) and preparations for the meeting take an inordinate amount of time. But the timing of this decision goes a long way to confirm my suspicions that they are building a case for my dismissal. Removal from the group also disqualifies me from any year-end bonuses that may be distributed.

As an example of my mindset, this exchange between J and myself from a few days ago:

but does it really matter? They are just saying the same shit your family says. I'm just tired of being the bigger person. Really tired of it. Where has it gotten me, really? I'm being pushed out of my job, my mom wavers between passive aggressive and abusive, your family acts like I'M the crazy one when I do defend myself and the people that I count amongst my closest friends feel free to demonize my values and totally disregard my feelings.

The furor over Park51 (formerly known and Cordoba House) has made a specific subset (aka libertarian/conservative) of my friends go insane. I violated my steadfast rule of not engaging with friends or family members over controversial targets and put myself squarely in the line for a series of ad hominem attacks that summed me up to be a lazy hypocritical communist liar only interested in taking away other people's property from two of my friends. This should, on the surface be laughable.

I'm not laughing in the least. I've spent the last several days crying and trying to pinpoint when it was that I learned that it was not OK to defend myself and I should not bother trying. I think sometime during my adolescence, between teachers who told me I should just suck it up, stop being childish and that I deserved the bullying and my mother, who proclaimed that my expectations of behavior from other people were “too high” (3).

I'm “hypocritical”. The agency for this accusation is based on the claim that (as a liberal) I do not criticize the way they treat Muslim women. When I pointed out that conservative Christians are more than happy to give just about every other religious creed (including Christianity) a pass on their treatment of women and that it was inconsistent to demonize an entire faith while simultaneously claiming that they were the only parties who cared enough to speak out against the terrible treatment of Muslim women, I was told that listing the negative practices of other religious faiths was “excusing” the mistreatment. What?

Here is a short list of known liberals who actively campaign against the mistreatment of women (including Muslims) : Nicolas Kristof, William Jefferson Clinton, Hilary Clinton, Greg Mortenson, Oprah Winfrey, William Gates, Jimmy Carter. Granted some on this list are not directly speaking out against the mistreatment of Muslim women. Instead they are building schools, funding vaccinations, supporting micropayment programs and training programs, all work that gets on with the job of helping women help themselves. The argument that liberals don’t care about the rights of Muslim women is disingenuous, as it assumes that liberals deliberately exclude Muslim women whenever they discuss the practice of FGM, forced marriage, stonings, rapes and other atrocities committed upon women everywhere.

I'm a “Communist liar.” I don't even know what to say this one, except to check the calendar and make sure it is 2010, not 1955. Ditto for “taking away people's property”. I don't have any idea what to do with that statement, it doesn't make sense.

And the worse accusation, that I'm “lazy”. I’m “lazy” because I support welfare, social security and programs such as WIC, even though I’ve only asked for a handout once in my life and paid the money back as soon as I had it available. Aside from that one example, I have never asked any individual, organization or governmental entity for money. The time that my parents covered the gas bill and paid my federal taxes while I was in graduate school? They offered when they saw how little I made on my previous year's tax return.(4) When I wanted to move back to PA after my stint in South Carolina went awry? They offered to me a room in their home until I got married, so I could save money towards a place to live. When J was underemployed and making only enough money to pay the mortgage and nothing else, I got a second job. When we got behind on the gas bill because I was not making enough money from two jobs I arranged a payment plan.

I put 10% of my paycheck towards retirement savings every month because I don't have any expectation of relying on social security. Until Baby Alien arrived I was saving an additional 1K a month as rainy day money. I used that money to fund my maternity leave and did not ask for a cent from my employer. I don’t carry a balance on my credit card for longer than two months and I pay all my bills on time.

I’m “lazy”, even though the original statement, “Would you support the building of a shrine at Pearl Harbor” is a bad analogy that could have been confirmed as such with a 10 second web search using the terms “shrine” and “Pearl Harbor”. I’m “lazy”,  even though I’m not the one that proceeded to argue that there shouldn’t be a Shinto shrine there either, because the Japanese attacked the United States. What the fuck does the practice of Shinto have to do with one sovereign nation attacking another? Japan doesn’t have a national religion.

Want lazy, you who could not bother to spend five minutes to determine the source of "the shrine at Pearl Harbor = cultural center at Ground Zero" analogy or the groups currently using it. One of those groups? The same subset of people who attempted to argue that even “if” Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, he wasn’t a US citizen because Hawaii was not a state when he was born. Granted that group backpedaled (eventually) from that assertion, but using an intellectually lazy group of crazies as source material for your arguments is being intellectually lazy squared.(5)

Want lazy? You did not bother to pull up a map and actually look at the location of Ground Zero or the proposed location of the cultural center. You argued that because the wheel of a plane went through the roof of the building at the site of the cultural center, it is part of Ground Zero. When it was pointed out to you that using where parts of a plane fell is poor criteria, as it includes an enormous chunk of Manhattan, you declared all of Manhattan to be sacred and went off on a rant about how the area should be zoned Mosque free. When it was pointed out to you that zoning the area to not allow the building of a Mosque or Muslim community center violates the first amendment, you conveniently ignored that oh-so-inconvenient establishment clause by arguing that if an HOA can dictate what color a property own can paint his or her home, then the city of New York can zone Manhattan as Mosque/Muslim community center free.

In arguing as such, you conflated “freedom of expression” and “freedom from religion”. Freedom of expression means that the government can not prevent you from saying what you want. It does not protect an individual from the private consequences of public speech. Home Owner Associations are not public government entities, they are private organizations.

Freedom from religion means that a public government entity can not permit a city to zone an area as free from one specific religious faith. It is either all or nothing. You want a Islam free zone in all of Manhattan? Fine. Kiss goodbye to every single church, synagogue and religiously affiliated community center in Manhattan as well. You are aware that under that criteria, that list would possibly include the YMCA?

So for calling me a lazy hypocritical communist liar, fuck you. Go to hell.

(1) Excedrin Migraine gives me the shakes, a side effect so bad that I would prefer the pain and nausea instead.
(2) See posts from April 2009.
(3) Blaming my mother is so passe, yet here I am.
(4) I would have done my own taxes, but my father enjoys that sort of thing and it became a ritual for him to do it every year, just as I would wrap my mother's Christmas presents from him every year.
(5) Try to follow the logic of the organization who is offering such sparkling arguments, gentlemen. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, located on Hawaiian island of Oahu (a U.S. Territory since 1898) in 1941, they were attacking the United States  so Shinto shrine near Pearl Harbor = BAD. But when Barack Obama was born in 1961 on the Hawaiian island of Oahu (the same exact island attacked by the Japanese 20 years earlier), he was not born in the United States, thus can’t be a citizen. Which one is it?

Hawaii was annexed by the United States in 1893 and became a U.S. Territory in 1898. In 1900, citizens born on the Hawaiian islands were granted United States citizenship. So even if Hawaii had not been an actual state in 1961, Obama would still be considered a U.S. citizen because he was born on a U.S. Territory to a U.S. citizen. Which I learned in 20 minutes of research.

Evaluation

I don't like changing jobs. I am proud that my employment history indicates a personality that is happy to stay around long term. I try very hard to work out differences. When I changed jobs two years ago, I agonized for several months over leaving, even though I knew intellectually that I was not challenged enough and could earn a considerable amount more somewhere else. But it was not until six months into my new position, when I learned that my former employer had fired everyone and closed the office that I breathed a sigh of relief over moving on to something new.

I've been trying for the past two weeks to wrap my brain around the fact that I will need to start looking again. It is becoming painfully apparent that I am not a good fit at this job and that I must find a new position before I find myself unemployed.

An implementation with a new client went terribly wrong and I am on probation, indefinitely. All the work I do must be reviewed by my supervisor on a weekly basis and by the VP on a monthly basis. If I fail to complete any task by the end of the week, I must give my supervisor a detailed explanation as to why it was not completed.

There is a long story behind this, but any explanation I have tried to come up with ends with me sounding as if I am incapable of taking responsibility for my failures. The VP is not interested in my perspective on what went wrong – if he was, he would have asked me about my perspective before announcing that I as going to have the hell micromanaged out of me. There is also a strong element of scapegoating behind the VP's decision. Conversations with the other actors in this project have revealed that I was the only individual disciplined.

So I'm looking. And considering my options.

Heartache

Last Saturday was the Fourth of July. As is our custom, we drove out to Washington County to celebrate with close friends, a married couple (C & D) with a large home and lots of property. Plenty of grilled food, cold salads, chips, desserts and beers of both the home brewed (by J and C) and mass produced variety. J and the party's host set off fireworks after dark.

It was especially joyful this year. Baby Alien, at seven months, is a stubborn bundle of laughter so interested in the world around him that bedtime is considered a personal affront. He might miss something. The house was overrun with children, including a little girl several months older than Baby Alien. D, eighteen weeks pregnant with twins, was passing around the latest set of ultrasound images. A boy and a girl.

Monday afternoon, D miscarried. Both babies lost. There were no warning signs. D was in perfect health, the pregnancy was progressing well, all her tests were normal.

Just one of those things that happens sometimes.

When words fail, make food. Express love and concern via a dish that takes some time and a bit of effort. Effort to hunt down the correct chili varietals to season the dish. Spend some more time carefully removing seeds and veins from the dried peppers, washing hands thoroughly to avoid getting oil in the eyes. Hack apart 4.5 pounds of pork shoulder while the chilies reconstitute, simmering in a mixture of water, tomatoes, cumin, onion and garlic. Throw together, cook overnight. Skim the fat, add grits.

 Try not to think about how colossally unfair are the machinations of the universe. Try not to think about the last fifteen months, how miserable you were to be pregnant, while your friend would give anything to still be in that state. Hope that she doesn't hate you now. Think of clichés instead, because the words are easy.

Today J and I drove out to their home, Baby Alien in the backseat, a container of pozole on ice in the trunk. J stayed in the car with Baby Alien while I headed towards the front door. I handed them the food, gave them hugs. Told them how sorry I was. D cried. I cried. C asked us to wait a moment, he had something for J.

A case of the latest home brew. An apology for being so sad, but “we picked up the ashes today”.

Drive away. Hope that they know the food was a gesture from the heart and that exhortations that they call us if they need anything are more then just empty words.

Baby Alien sleeps now. He has a lingering cough that he can not shake, a remnant of his first illness (the croup). Intellectually I know that is nothing, as I caught the virus from Baby Alien and have not been able to shake the cough either. Still, tomorrow we will call his doctor.

The Unbearable Frustration and Anxiety of Being

I am not OK, some days. Some days the normal vagaries of life wear me down to pointlessness. Some days this is more than just the normal weariness that accompanies caring for an infant.

It is the little things. The attempts to reach out that seem to backfire. The moments that I step out of my comfort zone that go awry. Some days I feel that no matter how much I try, I will always remained isolated. That Baby Alien will grow up to deal with a weird, sad, socially maladjusted mama whom he is embarrassed to call his mother.

My interpretive skills have gone to total shit. I seem to have lost any ability to navigate social settings with anything resembling grace, and I was never all that good at reading people to begin with.

I went to a bridal shower a few weeks ago. Part of stepping out (I hate showers) of my comfort zone. I bought a dress from Ann Taylor. I dug out the pretty silver shoes I wore to my brother's wedding. I put on the pretty Baccarat crystal necklace J purchased for me as a gift on our trip to Paris. I ruined two pairs of pantyhose before leaving the house. I tucked a bottle of wine into the gift bag, to go along with the corkscrew set off the bride and groom's registry. How bad could it be? I knew the groom - he was the brother of a close childhood friend. I knew the groom's mother (like a second mother to me), his sister, his two sisters-in-law, his aunts, his cousins. I knew some of his friends and the bride - J and I had socialized with him, her and their friends enough to be excited over their upcoming wedding.

It was awful. Not the kind of awful that you walk into right away, but the type of clusterfuck that starts out innocuously and slowly builds momentum until you hit a point where you wonder why you bothered to buy the pretty Ann Taylor dress and dig out the silver sandals that really don't fit your feet properly. The wild desire that you entertained days earlier to get out of the house and do anything gives way to frantic plots to escape.

The groom's mother greeted me warmly and made another place at the already crowded table for me to sit, with the rest of her family. Demanded to see baby pictures of Baby Alien. Passed around the iPod containing cute photos of baby. With the exception of one aunt (1), all cooed over photos and caught me up to speed on small town gossip while the aunt changed the subject to her children whenever anyone at the table asked me a question about Baby Alien.

The three, KN, KB and H, sat in a fog of tension so thick it was visible. Cut out of the shower planning by the bride's sister and multitude of friends while still expected to front the money to pay for the party, they plotted ways to avenge themselves on the other bridesmaids and spent the bulk of the shower tracking gifts and cleaning up wrapping paper with politely bitter smiles. In a classic demonstration of social ineptness, I missed the cues that the wanted my assistance in exacting said revenge by declining to put the tickets in the baskets. (2)

And so the shower progressed, with angry bridesmaids on one side, a politely hostile aunt on another and a disinterested waitstaff on the third, as I was unable to get a drink or refill of water. The guests grew restless and hungry (but not thirsty, as I appeared to be the only person in the room forced to ration her beverage), with nary a roll or leaf of lettuce to nibble on an hour into the party. Many guests, desperately downed the elaborate wedding cake cookie placed at each table as a party favor. One table managed to score several six packs of Miller Lite and were merrily drinking their way through bottle after bottle.

Desperate for some distraction from the lack of food, the angry sisters took it upon themselves to begin drawing tickets for the baskets. Service of the meal was rushed as the bride needed to begin opening gifts in short order if the party was going to end at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, as originally planned.

The gifts included the traditional mix of tacky lingerie and other "martial aids" that are so de rigor at bridal showers in these parts. It ended with the groom appearing with a large bouquet of flowers and the groom's mother asking me if I had eaten the fish, as one of the guests had become ill shortly after finishing her meal.

While on my way out, I stopped in the restroom to change my clothes and heard the aforementioned sick guest in the next stall. It was not the fish that had bought her low. It was the several bottles of Miller Lite.

Weeks later, this should just be a funny story. But it is not. Instead all the subtext from that day has been tinged ugly. This past weekend my brother told us that S and H are hosting a bonfire, to which J and I were not invited. He did not invite us because his wife, H, did not want me there.

Rationally, I understand that the bridal shower had nothing to do with the bonfire. H has never warmed to me and this is not the first time we have been excluded from plans that include my brother and his wife.

But it stung. It stung me, who has tried so hard over the years to get along with H, a person who I genuinely like. It hurts to see J, who counts S as one of his closest friends and chose S to be the best man at our wedding, who socialized with S and my brother before he met me, excluded and to know that I am the reason.

Now the comment that one of the sisters made before I left the shower, about how dressed up I was, seems catty rather than a humorous observation. And my efforts to get out in the world seem foolish, useless and pointless.

And worse of all, I am afraid I am turning into someone J is ashamed of.

(1) I was unsurprised. Several years ago I took a beautiful candid photograph (really, it was a great photo) of her youngest daughter playing during a family party and offered up a copy for her album. She complained that I made her daughter look too old and has apparently entertained an active dislike of me from that day forward.

(2) I am routinely astounded by how quickly moments like the above can propel me back to high school, when I was painted as scolding, moralistic tattle-telling goody-two-shoes merely because I was disinterested in participating in any of the dumb juvenile delinquency of my classmates. And I never told on anyone, ever. I got that, much undeserved reputation when I inadvertently revealed to a male upperclassman that the girl he was dating had lied about her age. I shall never forget the upbraiding I received from one of the cheerleaders, nor the threat that she would "make my life hell" if he broke up with the girl. As my high school life was sheer misery, I'm not sure what she could have done to it any worse because it was that bad. As for the sisters - if they had spelled out for me what they wanted I would have happily volunteered.

Things I Don't Like

I don't like being held up as an example of how pregnant women are supposed to act.

However one of my (male) coworkers has deemed it fit to use me as an example whenever his pregnant wife complains that she is tired or feels limited in what she can do on a day-to-day basis.

As his wife is not working, my coworker feels that it is necessary to remind her that I got up and went to work every day until the end of my pregnancy. Literally. When I pointed to out to coworker that I did very, very little but go to work, forcing J into multiple roles of cook, dishwasher, cleaner-of-kitty-litter boxes and scrubber of toilets, he shrugged off my gentle objections with a "but, still..."

I am not amused. I am offended. And I would not be at all surprised if this poor woman, who is now late in her third trimester, hates me.

If Not for You Meddling Kids...

Or, in this case, replace “meddling kids” with “meddling in-law”.

I'm glad for a little bit of minor personal family drama. It is something useful to escape from the non-stop attention Pittsburgh media has been paying to the quarterback formerly known as “Mr. Play for Jesus”, now better known as “showing up in the lyrics of Eminem's most recent song”.

Escape has not been as easy as turning off the television/radio and eschewing print and online Pittsburgh media because said quarterback's most recent travails have confirmed the bias I always held against him from the moment he was drafted – that this was a guy I would not want to spend five seconds alone with in a room.

End of digression Number 1. For further digressions, please see the footnotes, they are especially voluminous and verbose today.

J's mother, especially, can be a force to be reckoned with. During one of my less than finer moments in the past ten years I suggested that J's family has some Jewish members in the woodpile(1), such is the amount of passive-aggressive guilt that J's mother can pile on victims unsuspecting and otherwise.(2)

I have a thing about celebrating my birthday which can be traced back to the fact that I share a birthday with my brother, M. My twin brother. For roughly twenty years M and I had to negotiate our birthday celebrations. Some years he won and choose the dinner. Some years I did and got to eat chocolate cake. Some years (all occurring after I reached the age of 30) I've had to pretend that it was not my birthday at all and been yelled at by my mother for telling people that it was. I've had many a horrible birthday in my half-lifetime and have become stupidly neurotic about striving to have a good day.(3)

The thing that has developed with celebrating my birthday is that I want to be the one to plan it. Planning usually involves spending the day with J in some sort of fun activity, such as a visit to the National Aviary or Warhol Museum or making an elaborate and expensive meal for some of our friends. Some years I take the day off from work. Some years I plan for the closest Saturday. We get up, we go to breakfast, we go do something. This year I was looking forward to figuring out something that would involve Baby Alien(4) and toying with the idea of the Children's Museum, as there would be lots to look at and I could indulge in one of the fun things about being a parent – playing with children's “stuff” without fear of censure from other adults. And because doing something fun would remove the taint from the past two years.(5)

All my ruminations have come to a bad end, as my mom tipped me off during a recent phone conversation that my mother-in-law, gods bless her meddling little heart, was planning celebratory-type activities for my birthday and Mother's Day.(6)

My mother knew this because my mother-in-law called to ask her to come for Mother's Day, then attempted to pull a guilt trip on my mother because my parents will be on vacation in a location eight hours away and are rightfully reluctant to drive back in the middle of their vacation for one day.

The conversation moved from Mother's Day to my birthday and my MIL desire to plan my birthday celebration and her desire to gain my parents participation in the plans.

My mother reminded her that it was also my brother's birthday. I'm not sure if she did this because

1. she still remains under the impression that my twin and I somehow coordinate birthday celebrations,
2. my twin would be offended by my parents only celebrating with me,
3. she could not conceive of celebrating our birthday without my twin or
4. it was the easiest way to bring the conversation to a conclusion.

The more I think about the conversation, the more hilarious it becomes. My mother-in-law was bewildered that my mother would find driving back for one day unreasonable. My mother was bewildered that my mother-in-law was attempting to make her feel guilty and sat in awe of her powers of passive aggressive persuasion. Thinking about it now makes me laugh out loud.

She ranted, a little bit, about how unfair it was that I would not get to decide what I wanted to do on Mother's Day. In a spectacular display of tone deafness she also complained about my twin being excluded from any birthday plans she might want to make.

I, for what is worth, have resigned myself to rolling my eyes and allowing her to plan out both days, as they are taking Baby Alien for a night so J and I can attend a wedding - which is occurring the same day as the graduation party of J's oldest nephew. Payback.

(1) I admit that I put a toe across the border into heavy stereotyping with this comment. However, J's great grandmother was from Poland, came from a part of the country with a large Jewish population and immigrated to the United States in the 40's. It is not outside the bounds of possibility that family members converted to Catholicism to avoid rising anti-semitism, then immigrated. However, I have also been told (guilty of stereotyping again) that the only thing worse than a Jewish mother to pile on the guilt is a mother who happens to be Polish-Catholic. Additionally, the joke seems to be on me as J passed the Jewish suggestion on to his mother, who laughed then quietly admitted that there was a possibility that some of her fore-relatives may have converted.

(2) While I still can't completely suss out when she will strike, my reactions have gone from righteous annoyance to eye rolling, whining, mental shrugging and the occasional conciliation to her desires.

(3) As J expressed to me last night, one would think after almost 40 years I would give up trying.

(4) Going back to original nickname.

(5)The great [non] birthday fiasco of 2008 was followed by 2009, in which J was sick and spent most of what was possibly the only day in the first 20 something weeks of pregnancy that I was not unbearably nauseated, asleep. All I wanted was a card and a cupcake. I got neither. I did, however get a phone call from A in Switzerland (the same friend who sent me photographs of pregnant and newly postpartum supermodels to make me feel better about my increasing girth in late pregnancy. From anyone else this would have been considered highly misguided, as I'm certainly not the kind of pretty or thin that could be classified as “supermodel”. From A, who could never resist looking a beautiful woman, it was kind of sweet and did make me feel better in a weird sort of way) which rescued the day from becoming a tear-filled disaster. 

(As a further digression, A revealed to me several weeks ago that he and his wife (who is supermodel- territory beautiful, brilliant and fabulous) are expecting their first child, thus providing a theory to explain his offbeat obsession with pregnant supermodels – his wife was in early pregnancy when he sent me all the photos and links.) 

(6)I'm offering odds to those in the know on whether these plans include some way of getting me to go to mass.

Hurts Men Too

Saturday night BooBoo decided he was not going to sleep in his crib. Every time J put him down he woke up and began to yell. By attempt number three J was exhausted and frustrated and warned me that he was going to let BooBoo yell it out for a while, to see if he would put himself to sleep. I agreed to let him do it.

It did not work. I did not expect it would work. I've noticed over the past week that BooBoo is starting to understand that he is a separate little person, with a separate little will that does not have to mesh with his parents. I'm proud to see this. Seeing him turn his head and watch me walk away when I drop him off at daycare instead of gazing at the ceiling made me feel pretty good.

So what I see as a normal (albeit annoying) developmental milestone has left J reeling. And anxious.

“What is wrong with him” he asked, exasperated after wrapping the child up in a blanket and handing him to me to hold. While BooBoo stared at me, with eyes wide and full of immense concentration, I threw out a few suggestions – headache, ear infection, tummy trouble, just-plain-lonely.

“Should we take him to a doctor?”

Seventeen weeks into this journey and already I hate, hate, hate when J asks any variation of this question, beginning with the trigger phrase “should we”. What appears to be a perfectly innocuous inquiry from his point of view makes me want to beat down every single male and female who taught J, through words or stupid example, that he is incapable of trusting his instincts and intuition as a father. Not a parent. A father.

“I don't have an instinct for this” J says whenever BooBoo has cried a little too long because he is hungry, or needs a diaper changed or just-needs-to-cry-over-his-incompentent-staff-damnit.

My response – “Yes, you do. Spend more time with him.”

J dislikes that I do not step in or otherwise interfere when he cares for BooBoo. As long as he does not appear to be in danger or downright hysterical, I usually leave J to figure out what BooBoo needs with minimal interference from me. I suspect that he thinks, although he is smart enough to never admit it, that I'm abdicating responsibility.

Which I am. I'm abdicating sole responsibility of BooBoo to his biological father in order to avoid a dynamic in which I become the single decider and doer in all issues connected with the care and feeding of baby. I don't want that level of responsibility.

Still, there remains this idea that men like J are not competent enough to care for their own children. Members of J's own family are still express surprise at how comfortable I about J taking BooBoo to visit his grandparents, hang with the guys at Quaker Steak and Lube and watch J and his friends brew beer – without me along to supervise.

The Dairy (1) is Now Closed

I've been writing this entry in my head all week. But every time I try to sit down and put the words on screen I hesitate for a myriad of reasons sensible and senseless all at once.

BooBoo is now 100% on formula. And I could not be happier.

I read a lot of stuff. (Stay with me. There is a point to this). Some at the library, more online. One of the biggest complaints my family had throughout BooBoo's (2) gestation was that I read too much and knew too much about what was going on with my body. I shouldn't have been reading so much, it would make me worry too much.

Victorian/Edwardian much? Ignorance is bliss? Reading was one of the few things I could do to maintain some semblance of control during a process that was very much out of my control.

• I was not surprised when I had to put away my lovely bras in favor of quasi-sport style bras and tanks with snaps and cutouts.
• I was not surprised to have to buy shoes that would expand enough to fit my feet during the last months of pregnancy.
• I was not surprised to find, three days after delivering BooBoo, that the shoes I had purchased in point 2 didn't fit. I left the hospital in a wheelchair, sporting socks. If it had not been December, I would have forgone the socks altogether and left barefooted.

The weeks wore on and the two of us settled into some kind of rhythm. Even though it was still taking almost an hour to nurse him. Even though I had to give him both breasts every time. Even though it continued to hurt like hell every time he nursed off my right breast (which was every time he nursed). Even though the only time he seemed to not be hungry ½ an hour after finishing was when J gave him a bottle with formula. Even though he was barely above his birth weight and J was giving a bottle every night to help him gain.

Week eight came and went. I was still getting only an hour of sleep at a time. I was becoming increasingly depressed, to the point where I was contemplating hurting myself. I was not eating. I had no time and was not hungry anyway. I resented BooBoo. I resented J.

On the Monday morning of the ninth week I spent an hour nursing BooBoo. I put him down on his play mat for a few minutes so I could get something to eat. From the kitchen I could hear him crying. He was hungry. Again. He had finished nursing only five minutes before and he was screaming as if he had never eaten at all.

And the thought of me putting him to my right breast, of experiencing another ½ hour of burning pain that had no cause, was too much. I reached for a bottle. 2 ounces of water, a scoop of formula, shake like crazy.

And BooBoo took the bottle. Hungrily, easily, happily. When he was finished he looked at me with a contented expression and feel into a comfortable sleep.

And I experienced a moment of mental and emotional peace that I had not felt in months. I decided that today was a good day to start weaning BooBoo for daycare. Pump and bottle feed during the day, nurse in the morning and at night.

It was a good plan that didn't work. I didn't produce enough milk to send what he needed to daycare. I altered the plan. Give him formula during the day, nurse in the mornings, breast milk from a bottle in the evenings.

Which worked for two weeks, until I got food poisoning and the milk supply quit altogether. Quit cold. The painful weaning that I read about? Didn't happen. I just stopped producing.

I read a lot. A lot of blog entries from other women who have quit breastfeeding because it just didn't work for a myriad of reasons. And a I read the comments, supportive and cruel. Comments from women who were able to successfully breastfeed their children for a year plus yet got that sometimes it just doesn't work. Cruel comments from “lactation activists” (3) about sucking it up and soldiering on, no matter the mental, physical, emotional cost.

Since I stopped, being with BooBoo has been a joy. It is a joy to get up at 5:00am, while he is still sleeping, so I can be showered and dressed when he wakes. It is a joy to listen to him cry (he is not a morning person) as I change and dress him for the day. To make funny faces and silly noises in the off chance that he will smile. To hear him learning how to laugh.

And I know, deep in that part of me that just knows, that I would not have felt this if I had continued trying to do something that was fundamentally not working.

Thank you, from every fiber of my being, to those who offered support through emails and comments in these past weeks. Your kindness amazes me.

There has been one surprise. I was surprised to discover that my very flat feet are now flatter and the first few steps I take whenever I get up from a chair hurt.

(1) Quoth Jeff to a friend “We have a dairy in the back of our fridge” when I was still pumping out a decent amount every day. A very apt description.
(2) The Alien has graduated to the nickname BooBoo.
(3) I refuse to invoke Godwin's law in an entry about breastfeeding. Not going to do it.

Work Again, Work Again, Jiggity-jig

I started back at work a day later than originally planned. Having to call off on my first day back was embarrassing, but necessary, due to the semi-massive bout of food poisoning both J and myself suffered late Sunday night into the wee hours of Monday last.

After some discussion, the culprit was determined to be the (many days expired) soy milk that J used Sunday morning to make chai tea. The tea sat on the counter for most of Sunday and I threw the caution I usually utilize(1) when sampling J's wares to the wind and had several glasses. As did J.

Late Sunday night, after simultaneously cursing and celebrating Canada's win over the United States in Olympic gold-medal round hockey(2) I expressed to J that I was not feeling very well. We compared notes on our symptoms.

And about 15 minutes after that conversation all hell broke loose for the adult members in our household. J and I spent the next several hours trading off time in the bathroom. For the first time in many a day I found myself, cheek to cool tile floor, wishing for a quick death(3).

Around 1:00am, as the two of us lay on our bed, the following dialogue took place:
Me: Would this constitute enough of an emergency to call your mom?
J: Yes.
Me: Why don't we do that then?
J: Now? (Even the question mark was in italics).
Me: Why not?
J: I'll call them in the morning.

At 6:00am I dragged myself out of bed, fed (from a bottle, I'll be damned if my kid accidentally gets food poisoning from me(4)) and dressed a perfectly healthy and happy L for his first full day of day care. I am unable, two weeks later, to explain how I managed to get him to the center and back home again. All I know is that the delusion I maintained at one o'clock in the morning that I would be able to make it into work was completely shattered. I sent an email off to my supervisor and collapsed into a stupor on our bed once again.

J's parents arrived around 3:00pm, food for their dinner in hand(5). They helped J (who was far sicker than I) pick up L and took care of him until 5:00am Tuesday morning. After they left I discovered they had done all the dishes and left food in the refrigerator.

Food poisoning aside, returning to work has been delightful.

(1) J's desire to NOT waste food means that he will drink and eat many days expired items from our fridge. I've even caught him eating moldy bread. I, on the other hand, am usually far more cautious.
(2) Cursing as the United States lost. Celebrating as the game-winning goal was scored by the Penguins' Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovech-whathisnamewho? did not get within smelling distance of a medal of any variety. This is not because I think Crosby is more talented than Ovechkin. This is because I can't stand seeing an athlete as talented as Ovechkin unnecessarily thug it up on the ice.
(3) The difference between this and the many times I wished for a quick death during my recent time gestating the alien? No tile floor and guilt-free access to tequila.
(4) I'm pretty certain that this was a contributing factor to the beginning of the end of my function as a dairy.
(5) My father-in-law has, for years, maintained that we have no food or beverages in our home. Which translates to no food or beverages J's father would be willing to eat or drink. This habit goes back almost as long as J and I have been married, when we had a spirited discussion with J's father over the fact that we never had soda/pop in our home. This is the same man who turned down homemade chicken noodle soup because he wanted chili then complained that I made the chili wrong. Yes, I am still a little bit bitter about the five hours of my life I will never get back from that incident.

Bad Mom – Entry Number 1

My in-laws are not pleased with me.

My in-laws are not pleased with me and think that I am a bad, disinterested mother.

My in-laws are not pleased with me and think that I am a bad, disinterested mother because I have zero qualms about my child's father (their son) taking L for the day without me. To his parents (my in-laws) home.

They want to know “what is wrong with [me]”. Nothing that a few hours of uninterrupted sleep would not solve in short order.

On the upside, the fact that the question irritates me means that I'm feeling more like myself.

Snzzzz

I have not had much to write about lately, as my life as a bus-riding, full-time worker bee has temporarily ceased to focus on helping L to figure out how to live in the world. I spend several moments every day struggling to fill my brain up with something other than the three god-awful songs emitting from the Fisher Price 2-in-1 Playful Puppy Gym.

But L loves this hideous piece of plastic and it has become a key part of our daily routine, as the 20-30 precious minutes L spends enthralled is more than enough time for me to get a shower and breakfast. Enthralled in this case means that he waves his skinny arms, vigorously kicks his feet and emits an occasional shout when the music ceases playing.

Such is my desperation some days to get out of the house and into the world sans infant, that a trip to Costco turns into an event. Hours I can spend, wandering the warehouse, debating the merits in the purchase of a 24 pack of San Pellegrino Limonata and Aranciata (I passed up on the opportunity) and resisting the temptation to purchase $60.00 worth of iTunes gift cards for $55.00. Only to turn around and spend an embarrassing and slightly obscene sum of money of bulk goods ranging from a 5lb bag of unshelled pistachios to 64oz of dishwashing detergent.

Today's score? Two 40lb bags of kitty litter for the low price of less than $10.00 a bag. Such a little bulk saver I am becoming.

Such was my obliviousness to the bulk buying process that I failed to observe that items are not actually bagged. Instead they are placed into boxes recycled from the item's packaging.

One of these days, something interesting may happen to me again.

Notes From the First Six Weeks

1. My younger brother shocked the daylights out of both of us when he drove 4 plus hours from his home on the day of L's birth just to see him. And drove back home the same day.
2. Nothing tasted as sweet as that first shot of tequila after bringing L home.
3. All those experts who state that newborn babies sleep 18 out of 24 hours are full of crap.
4. The sleep deprivation is as bad as I thought it would be.
5. I'm never going to enjoy breastfeeding. And I'm OK with that.
6. You know you are doing something right as a couple when you manage to successfully tick off both sets of grandparents for essentially the same reason.
7. Babies can cause insanity in previously normal and low maintenance family members.
8. A trip to Costco feels like a night on the town.
9. My tolerance for alcohol has dropped to levels not seen since I was twenty-one years old. One glass of wine and I am loopy for several hours. I am officially a “cheap date” once again.
10. We managed to get through our first post-baby date night without calling home to check on L.
11. I am not cut out to be a stay-at-home mother.
12. The perception that one's child is cute is a biological construct created to prevent a parent from killing their child.
13. It is rather sad that I had to have a child in order to earn the respect and the right to be treated like an adult from some parties. It negates everything else that I have accomplished in my life.
14. Dr. Seuss footed pajamas and magna onesis = total win. Best gift we received, hands down.
15. Every time I think I can't be more overwhelmed with graditude for the kindness and support of once internet strangers, I am overwhelmed once again.