Labels

Why is it that as a women, you get pegged a tom-boy or a girly girl.  This distinction gets assigned to you at a very early age and I don’t see why you can’t be both.  Most of the women I know and respect could easily fall into either camp at any moment.

I was at a party this weekend with three other couples and their kids, but Kevin could join me, so I was flying solo.  The A’s game was on.  I wanted to watch it which was shocking to all the men.  I like sports.  I like baseball.  I like football.  When I watch sports I like to drink beer.  Does that make me a tom-boy?

I take my coffee black, my drink of choice is tequila-soda and I am pretty sure there isn’t anything I can’t do.  Based on this I am a tough girl, right?

I also like pedicures, chick-flicks and cry every week when I watch Parenthood.  I love the way I feel when I put on a hot dress with four inch heels.  So I must be a girly?

This got me thinking about my sorority sisters.  If we are in a sorority we MUST be girly?  Except one of my sisters does triathlons (yes multiple), can drink most men under the table and manages to be an awesome mom while also traveling extensively for her job in a male dominated field.  I have sisters that are in the military, who are doctors and lawyers.  Very smart, strong confident women.  Then I remember how we all crammed ourselves in the bathroom to get ready for formal recruitment or how we popped a dozen bags of popcorn to watch Friends in the downstairs basement, or rocked out to Madonna during Spring Formal.  You all know who are and I love you!

We work hard, play sports and get sweaty.  We wear lipstick, skirts and stilettos.  Don't label us.  

Transformer

I can honestly say that Cara hasn’t changed much since she was born.  Sure, she is a LOT bigger, has a much larger vocabulary and can “do the Mickey Motion,” but her personality hasn’t changed much.  She has always been very expressive and silly.  She is stubborn and determined.  For better or worse she is loud, bossy and particular and I love all these things about her.  After all, she is my mini me J

Bri on the other hand has undergone huge personality transformations.  Just when I think I have got her pegged, she goes and does something unexpected.  Maybe that is her thing, to be unexpected.  When she was an infant she was quiet, still and observant.  She smiled a lot, but seldom laughed.  You got the impressions she was just taking everything in and quietly processing.

When she reached about six months, that all changed.  She was busy, very busy, too busy to be cuddled.  She was always moving.  This change was followed closely by an explosion of language.   At no point was I ever worried about her language development, but she certainly wasn’t the chatty Cathy Cara was at the same ages.  Suddenly she was racing around the house and carrying on about something or another.  Occasionally she would circle around for a drive-by hug, but anything beyond a momentary squeeze and I had a wiggle worm on my hands.  There were no weekend morning snuggles, if she was up she was moving.

I had come to expect this bustle of movement from her, that is until recently.  Just as suddenly as she took off, she slowed down.  Ironically it coincided with when she started walking which to me seemed a little counter-intuitive.  She is going through her separation anxiety phase and that is probably driving some of the recent change.  Now she wants to be held all the time, she will snuggle with me some mornings after her bottle.  She follows me around the house and sits or stands at my feet waiting to be picked up.  And when I do pick her up, her little body just melts into mine in a way that I can only describe as happiness.  I love it.

I expect she will continue to change when she realizes I am not the center of her universe, but until then I will relish the snuggles and peaceful time I have with her and appreciate the little girl she is growing up to be.

Momma Needs a Nap

I should preface this post, with This is mostly my own fault.  Over the last month weeks, I have been averaging less than six hours of sleep a night.  You might be tempted to blame the kids, but sadly it really isn’t their fault (At least not entirely).

I have been unusually busy.  We hosted a dinner party for some friends, who don’t have kids.  Which meant the house needed to be cleaned (well, at least the downstairs).  And because they don’t have kids, I felt especially compelled to make sure my house didn’t look like the dump/ToysRUs that is normally does.  Another night my sister took me out for my birthday, we went hat shopping which is really fun.  However, if you are anything like me, you must try on every hat in the store.  That takes a long time, which means getting home late.  Then I had to stay and work late one night.  Another day we hosted a birthday party for Bri.  Can you believe she is one!?!  Went to New York for a week = kids off sleep schedule = less sleep for me.  You get the idea.

 

I also recently went off caffeine.  Why would a reasonably sane person do that you ask?  Over the last couple of months I have noticed that more often than not, I didn’t feel well.  I was getting frequent nausea, stomach aches and all around unpleasantness.  I chalked it up to postpartum hormones or nursing.   But when I really started paying attention, I realized I only felt sick when I drank coffee.  Hopped on Google and WebMB and realized caffeine intolerance is really common and super unfortunate.  BUMMER!

In any event, there has been a lot going on.  Now add to that new fall premiers (this is where it becomes 100% my fault).  I haven’t been up to 12:30 every night with kids or work or dinner parties. I have been watching X-Factor, The Voice and Dancing with the Starts.  Last Tuesday I DVR’d seven things, SEVEN!  I am embarrassed and a bit ashamed to admit that, but it is true.  What’s worse is that most shows haven’t even premiered yet.  At least with a DVR I can get through three hours of competition programming in about 45 minutes, but still, no excuses.

I probably won’t change my behavior, so I guess I will just need to channel my inner college-student, forego sleep and try my best to get through the fall season.  Hopefully the kiddos will let me squeeze in a nap every now and again and maybe sleep in till 8a on the weekends every once in a while.  Doubtful.

Thoughts From A Non Medalist

Every four years, the entire world gets a reminder of how inadequate we are; it is called the Olympics.  We watch, we cheer, we are happy when our team wins and sad when they lose.  But ultimately, we realize we had nothing to do with their success and will never measure up. 

I remember when I was a girl feeling very sad the first time I realized I would never be an Olympian, I was heartbroken (for as long as an eight year old pays attention to anything).  Now that I am an adult, I look at all these athletes, most of whom are younger than me and know I missed my ‘window’.  However, I don’t feel sad for my loss, but theirs.  I listen to 15 year old medalists say they have worked their entire life for that moment.  Their entire life! Can you imagine dedicating your entire childhood to a sport where you get one chance to be the greatest and peek at the age of 16?  No thank you.

I am pretty sure no one is ever going to give me a medal for anything, but I am pretty good at a lot of things. And more than that, I had the opportunity to experience a lot of things.  As a kid I played softball and swimming.  Took dance and art classes.  Dressed up and played pretend.  Went to Disneyland on summer vacation.  Camped at the lake.  Was in the band, the school play and hung out with my friends.  I did stuff.  Lots of stuff.

In college I went to football games, joined a sorority, and participated in student government.  I stayed out late, slept in late and occasionally dragged my butt to the gym.  I had a lot of fun not being a world class athlete.

Maybe I am trying to validate my choices in life or justify why I can sit on the couch eating pretzels while the best athletes in the word leave it all in the pool, gym or stadium.  Whatever the case may be, I appreciate what I have and wouldn’t trade all those experiences for a gold medal and all you have to give up to get one.  I respect the talented athletes who do make those choices.  I have thoroughly enjoyed watching them compete.  They may even have motivated me to hit the gym a little harder, but I certainly don’t feel like I am missing out.

Reflection

I am quickly approaching a milestone birthday this weekend, and as I reflect on the last decade I can’t help but think of all the amazing things I have done, people I have met and achievements I have earned.

In the spring of 2003 two important things happened: I graduated from college and made the decision to attend Syracuse to earn a masters.  At the advice of my guidance counselor I chose Syracuse over American University and Boston University, a choice that led me to the love of my live and events I could never have imagined.

That winter I met this guy….online.  This was before meeting people online was normal.  We hit it off and then one day he asked if we should meet.  Before leaving, I made sure people knew where I was going and would call to check on me, off I went.  I knocked on the door and this extremely tall guy wearing yellow warm up pants (you know, the kind that unzip at the knee) and a faded Syracuse basketball T-shirt answered the door. Unimpressive.  We watched Bull Durham, drank Yuengling and talked late into the night.  Two years later I married that guy.

After grad school, I moved back to California, driving 3,000 miles with my then boyfriend through about 10 states in less than four days.    If that isn’t a test of compatibility, then I don’t know what is.  We visited such national treasures as Little America, WY (home of the 10¢ soft serve and the only bathroom for 400 miles), a monument erected in honor of Buffalo Bill Cody and a classic car road race pit stop in Elko, NV.  We arrived in California the day before the Fourth of July.  The following day we took the ferry to Pac Bell park on a beautiful sunny day in San Francisco to watch the A’s play the Giants.  I don’t remember if the A’s won or not, I just remember being very happy.

Shortly thereafter we got jobs, there was a proposal, and a wedding.  We moved into our first apartment in Oakland.  I remember a friend from grad school recommending to me that I don’t get killed when I told her we were moving to Oakland, advice heeded.  We stayed in Oakland for three years which included many trips to the farmers market and Colonial Donuts on Saturdays, a tiny Mexican restaurant on the other side of Lake Merritt for the best mole I have ever had and the discovery of Kamakura in Alameda, still my favorite sushi place.

In May of 2008 as we sat by the pool at a resort in the Dominican Republic listening to Bocelli, we started to talk about baby names for when we had kids; Carol Ann if we had a girl, Connor James if it was a boy.  This was of course after my husband had only half-jokingly threw out George Washington as an option. Nope.  A year later, we brought beautiful Carol Ann home from the hospital.

After I got pregnant, we looked around our little apartment and tried to figure out how we could make it work with a baby.  We couldn’t.  We weighed the merits of being closer to work, versus closer to family. Proximity toamily was the right choice.  We bought a house near my parents.  At the time I couldn’t possibly imagine how we would fill it.  Now, I sometimes wonder if we shouldn’t have perhaps got a bigger house.  A few years later we brought Brianna Michelle home from the hospital to complete our family.

The last ten years have brought me as far north as Hadrian’s Wall and as far south as the jungles of the Dominican Republic.  I have changed my name, brought two amazing people into the world and hopefully have made a positive difference. I can only hope that the next ten years are as blessed as the last and can’t wait to see what happens next.

Staying at Home is Too Hard

I often joke that being a stay at home mom would be a hell of a lot harder than my job.  The reality is, it isn’t a joke, it’s 100% true.  I have several friends who are stay at home moms, I have so much respect for them, I don’t know how they do it.  I love my kids, more than anything else in the world, BUT I cannot imagine my life revolving completely around them 24 hour a day, seven days a week.  I would go batty.

I took four months maternity leave when I had Cara, after about two and a half I was itching to go back.  I love her and loved being home with her.  But I also loved my independence, my interaction with other adults, the opportunity to use the toilet, by myself.  When I went back to work I was a wreck. I think I cried for a week.  I was sad about leaving her, and selfishly, I think I was sad I might miss something.  That didn’t mean I wasn’t glad to be working.

Over time, I realized that Cara actually loved going to daycare.  Her friends were there; she was learning a lot and probably was allowed to make bigger messes than I would permit at home.  Occasionally, she would go through phases where she would make a fuss when I dropped her off, but she was all smiles and didn’t want to leave in the afternoon.  It got to the point when we dropped her off that she would run off to play with her friends with no thought to saying goodbye.

When I had Bri, I took another four months.  This time was different, this time I had two.  Holy crap two is hard.  We sent Cara to daycare two days a week; I looked forward to those days like Christmas.  That sounds awful I know, but anyone who has had a two-year-old and an infant can tell you, the two-year-old doesn’t care that you have an infant.  And the infant couldn’t be bothered with the two-year-old. 

I was grateful for Gymboree and our Oakland Zoo membership; we spent a lot of time at both.  Because of the demands of a newborn, I also allowed Cara to watch more TV than I otherwise would have thought appropriate. (Bad habits are hard to break and we are just now getting back into a TV off rhythm)  I schlepped them on errands and lunches. I worked around them as installed new flooring.  We made frequent trips to the park, signed up for swim lessons.  I was running out of ideas and sanity.  How do stay-at-home parents find stuff to entertain kids day after day?

Despite the craziness, I think I was more anxious about going back to work the second time.  I don’t think it was because I was worried about Bri.  I knew she was going to be loved and well looked after.  This time, I think it was mostly me being selfish.  I know now how fast they grow up.  I knew that I would miss stuff not that I might and that tore me apart.  For the month leading up to my return to work, I couldn’t sleep.  I would lay in bed for hours every night thinking about it.

I went back to work on a Thursday.  We dropped the two girls off, my eyes got a little misty, I gave them both kisses and off I went.  I didn’t cry.  For a few days, I felt bad that I didn’t cry, as if I should have to validate my anxiety or demonstrate how hard it is to say goodbye each morning.  I realize, I love my kids, I love working and for me personally, I am a better mom for it.

It's Mom Now

When I look at Carol, I see my little baby girl.  If what my mom says is true, I will always see my baby girl even when she goes off and has kids of her own.  I didn’t expect to be mommy forever, but thought I might get a couple more years out of her.  Unfortunately, on her third birthday Carol decided she was too mature for mommy, and is just Mom now.

I don’t know if it was merely a coincidence or if something biological clicked exactly on Carol’s third birthday.  We had decided in advance to ride the train a few stops and get pizza for lunch.  We thought rightly that she would get a kick out of riding the train, even though it would have been much easier to drive. As we were prepping to go everything was “Yes Mom,” “No Mom,” “ Come on Mom.”  Kevin laughed at my new name until we went to the front yard and she said, “I’ll get the paper Dad.”  Hmm.

She loved riding the train; everything from waiting on the platform and waving to the train operator to plotting our course on the map inside.  She exhibited so much joy and excitement over every aspect of the experience, whereas it is something I do every day and has lost its luster.  However, even in her childish excitement, she continued to call us Mom and Dad, this made me sad.

Getting her nails done

Since then, there have been moments when she reverts to Mommy, like when she is tired, scared or hurt.  But for the other 99%  of the time, Mom.  I can’t help but wonder if her decision to switch will cause Bri to make the switch earlier (Bri can’t even talk yet).  I hope not.  This makes me think of when I was about seven or eight and I told my little sister Sesame Street was stupid.  She stopped watching.  My mom was mad.  I wasn’t trying to be mean; I just thought I knew better.  I guess I should resign to whatever will, happen will happen, but I can still not like it.

Since then she has demonstrated her new found maturity in my ways.  Just this morning she commented, “I’m not a baby, I’m a big girl.”  Mind you, this was after she woke up in the middle of the night upset about something or another and spent the rest of the night in our bed.  We are in the middle of potty training and on Sunday she proceeded to tell me: “You drive me crazy,“ “Leave me alone,” and “Mom, you go to time out.”  Yikes!  If only it didn’t sound so absolutely hilarious coming from her, it would be upsetting.

I realize she is just trying to assert herself and demonstrate control over her life and choices, this is normal.  All my other mom friends say the exact same thing.  Even so, couldn’t I just have Mommy for another few years?