March 4: Two-year jobbiversary
March 6: Mom’s and Dad’s wedding anniversary
March 9: Supafine’s two-year bloggiversary
March 23: Owen turns 11 weeks old
March 26: My half-birthday: 25.5
God, how time flies.
Monthly Archives: March 2005
Turns out separation is survivable
Man. I just can’t write today. I feel kind of in a funk.
Owen is at daycare right now; he seems to be doing just fine. The ladies said he was a good boy.
Leaving him yesterday, I kind of felt like I’d abandoned him on the Island of Misfit Toys. I lasted a few hours before I cracked and ran back to get him. He was sleeping peacefully in his crib, and I got all choked up just looking at him.
While I was picking him up, I met another mom who has a baby there, and she raved about how much she loves it. I really like that all the parents who already have their kids there have such nice things to say, and are so friendly and normal. Makes me feel better.
So he’s there today, and I have some more errands to run and whatnot. It’s about fifty hundred times easier doing things when I don’t have to babywrangle. I miss him, though.
Struggling suburbs
The Sun has an interesting series going on about housing prices in the region. We just bought our wee Cape Cod in July, so real estate stories always catch my eye.
Today’s article was about Baltimore’s less-fancy suburbs, like Dundalk and Parkville, and how they’re the last bastion of affordable housing, which is kind of important if you’re, say, a teacher or a part-time newspaper-putter-together-er.
Where I’m from, in Northwest Ohio, a $300,000 house had four garages, six bedrooms and a racquetball court. Here, that’ll buy you a “normal” three-bedroom SFH in a nice neighborhood, or a townhouse and some nice furniture. The house we’re living in would probably go for $60,000-$80,000 back home — at least half of what we had to pay here. I think it’s just nutty.
In fact, that’s why Owen is in daycare this afternoon. An important goal for our son is to give him a single-family house with a yard, the way we grew up. To do that around here, we both have to work. It sucks that families can’t get by on one income like in the olden days.
Pre-pre-school
OK. Owen starts day care tomorrow morning. I’m going to use the resulting free time to get my car fixed [Karen’s boyfriend Jon is my new mechanic, which is cool] and train myself on InDesign and take off this stupid tarty-red nail polish.
I’ve decided that I’m not going to think of it as “day care,” because that has negative connotations for me. Instead, I’m going to think of it as “school.” He’ll go meet his “teachers” and his “classmates” and he’ll “learn stuff.”
Actually, he probably will learn stuff. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to let him socialize with other people. Sometimes I think it’s a little unhealthy for him to stare at just his crazy mom all the livelong day. And the kids there always seem so happy and well-adjusted; I like to think it’s because they have their own little “tribe.” I can’t provide him with that, living five to eight hours away from our families, so he’ll get his socialization at “school.”
My little socialist.
P.S. Today he looked a little like ET. Is that normal?
“Questionable content”
UPDATE: A quick look at my MT-Blacklist items showed that .com was being blocked, and most blog URLs include that. So things should be fixed. For now.
A note on comments: Something’s gone awry, and you’re probably getting rejected if you try to comment because of “questionable content.” I’m not exactly sure what’s up, but I’m working on it. Please be patient, and send me an e-mail with whatever you’d like to say: marybeth at supamb dot com.
Attach my foot to your ass
This attachment parenting crap is bullshit. Stupid hippies. Owen screams and gnashes what would be his teeth, if he had any, when I carry him around. He licks my shirt and cries. Put him down in his bouncy seat — the “Love ‘em and Leave ‘em” — and he giggles, coos, flaps his arms around.
I’m not breastfeeding, and he sleeps in his crib, and he’s insanely happy with both. Sleeps through the night like a dream, but if he’s in our bed no one gets any sleep. And he’s eating like a total champ and gaining like crazy, unlike when I was breastfeeding him.
God. I’m just so pissy this afternoon. We’re going over to Carole and Tom’s later, to have a cookout and let the babies play with each other, and I’m really happy about it. I want to get out of this fucking house and let someone else hold the screamer.
Dangerous
So I went to the murder mall today — the one where the high-school teacher was shot and killed by two punks with a shotgun and not enough cash.
I was nervous. But there were a lot of other irresponsible moms with tykes in strollers, so I didn’t feel too badly. Besides, I needed a fix from the Apple Store.
Did you know they have 30” displays? That’s a monitor that’s larger than my entire child. By half a foot. It’s freaking huge.
And the iPod Photo is so pretty, with its lovely color screen. The Shuffle, so tiny I just know I would lose it. And the iBooks and the delicious, delicious PowerBooks, which, combined with high-speed internet access and a wee Airport Extreme setup, would fucking make my day.
Hint, hint, honey. I birthed a child for you. Where’s my laptop?
I actually got in and out of the Apple Store without purchasing major hardware or getting shot, which I think is impressive.
Edit: I’ll podcast yer mom.
Instead of eating lunch
… I restyled the blog again. I hope it renders correctly in your browser of choice. Redesigning is one of my favorite hobbies, though I never like to spend too long doing it, so the result is usually half-assed.
Oh, well.
Checking out
Owen starts day care on Monday. I start work the following Wednesday. I’m giving us a week and a half to get used to it.
Is it too late to change my mind?
I’m starting to get very panicky about this. I know he’ll be fine, that the ladies there will take good care of him. But they don’t love him like I do, and his cries won’t pierce their hearts the way they do mine. I’m afraid he’ll resent me for it, that we both won’t be able to get over my betrayal, of abandoning him to strangers while I go off to put some little newspaper together.
I know, rationally, somewhere in my head, that he’ll be fine, but as they day draws closer I start freaking out.
It’s strange, because I sometimes get sick of staying home with him all the livelong day, doing things in tiny parcels of time between feeding him, soothing him, rinsing off the binky. Nothing gets accomplished, the house is in an embarrassing disarray, and every day when Iain gets home I feel guilty and hope he doesn’t notice.
I’ve been reading a lot of mothering books and blogs by mothers, but they’re all stay-at-home moms. I feel like they have the luxury of really being there for their kids, that they’ll never feel that betrayal that I will feel next week. They won’t feel the guilt of abandonment, even if I’m not actually abandoning him; they won’t know the tearful goodbye and the accusing eyes as I leave him every morning.
Of course, I know from experience that stay-at-home life isn’t light and easy. I’ve seen the phrase “checking out” pop up quite often, and I feel it too. I want to put him down and walk away and get in the car and drive and drive and drive and let someone else be his slave for a minute.
He’s not doing it on purpose. He’s not malicious. He’s just helpless and needs someone to take care of him. But Jesus it’s an exhausting job sometimes.
I don’t want him to feel like work. Most days, especially at the beginning of the week, it’s a joy to cater to him. I am damn proud that I can read him like a book and satisfy his needs almost before he realizes what he wants.
But by the end of the week, by Friday at three o’clock, I just want Iain to come home so I can hand him over and lock myself in the bathroom. Poor Iain. He gets the poopy diapers and the evening colic and the crazy wife.
I’m trying to see my going back to work as a good thing, but I’m feeling kind of alone about it. I don’t know any other working mothers with kids as young as Owen. I’m trying to feel eager at getting the reprieve of a daily job, where I can talk to grownups and pee whenever I want.
But I feel pretty shitty that I could want a reprieve from my own kid, whose smiles make his fat little face squish up in a hundred beautiful ways. How could I look forward to handing him off, even to Iain? How can I look forward to some surrogate nanny type, who’s going to be the one to feed him and hear his first word?
I think I’m going to cry. I hate Thursdays.
Internet Dorks Meet Here
I am incapable of attending a Blog Baltimore meetup without writing about it. I’ll make it quick.
1. Dizzy Issie’s was great. They had a rotating diner-style dessert thingie.
2. Holy shit, we had like 20 or 30 people, tons of new faces. New folk: Very nice to meet you. Old Guard: Great seeing you again. You look terrific.
3. “You don’t like Prince?!?”
4. I think I peed in the boys’ room.
5. Our waiter had a cool-guy mohawk.
7. I smoked way too much. I mean way. At least I had company.
8. Lostgal and I clucked over how our little flock has grown from the first meetup we had a year ago.
9. Some guy hit on me at the bar. Seriously. He wasn’t a blogger, though.
10. I accidentally burned a hole in the sleeve of Mohawk Waiter’s shirt.
13. Jason Dove wore a tie.
19. We totally made plans for a BB house party and to stalk the city paper until they write about our phenomenon.
I love you, Baltimore blogging persons. You’re a joy to be around. Even when we’re drunk. See you at the next one. Thanks to Fool’s Fate for putting it all together.