Monthly Archives: August 2007

In dreams as in life

Posted on by
2

Last night I dreamt that I was watching C-Span on the front stoop with an old friend. I think it was, like, holographic C-Span, which sounds cool in theory, but didn’t make it any less boring.

Frolicking around us was a cute, fluffy skunk. What a cute animal! How much more entertaining than C-Span! But soon the skunk started whapping us with his wee clawed paws. Whap! And scratching our shoulders. Scratch! And as we peered closer to see what was the matter, we realized that it was a skunk. No, a skunk. Remember what a skunk is? And — uh oh — this one has a payload to deliver! Run away! Run away!

Heh. Golly, whatever could this dream be about? Certainly it is unrelated to the small, stinky critter that sleeps next to me from 3 to 6 a.m?

Last day of maternity leave

Posted on by
8

I go back to work tomorrow night, second shift. It’s weird; this feels like the rest of our lives starts tomorrow. We had our Summer of Love, all four of us at home learning to enjoy each other, with no work to interfere and plenty of time to travel. But tomorrow Iain will be back at school and I will be starting my new gig as a part-time working mother of two.

It’s the best of both worlds, and the worst, this gig.

On the one hand, I get to stay home with my children. Hurray! No mommy guilt at “having someone else raise my child”. No high daycare tuition to pay. No morning rush. Hours and hours during which I can gaze lovingly at my offspring and bake brownies. I also get to keep working, keep my hand in the cookie jar or whatever the hell the expression is. Keep one foot in the door of the working world. I have a reason to put on mascara and will get to leave the house without children hanging off of me. I will work together with other adults in producing a something useful.

On the other hand, though, there are definite downsides. This schedule means that I will wake at the crack of dawn, pull Mommy duty for almost 10 hours straight, and then work another 8 at my regular job, getting home after midnight only to nurse my baby every few hours until dawn breaks again. Staying at home during the day means there are no day care teachers keeping an educated eye on the children’s development. There are no specially designed activities. There are no other small children here to help socialize my kids. And (let’s be honest) there’s not going to be much schedule to the day. Also, as far as work goes, I’ll be working at night, when more than half the staff has gone home and the temptation to roll in wearing flip-flops will be very strong. Much if not most of the hustle and bustle happens during the day, and I’ll only hear about it.

But back to the plus side. Fewer people and a quieter office. Comfortable clothing. And part-time means I only have to work such crazy hours two nights a week.

Here’s the kicker: Five day weekend! Nothing can be so bad if you’re looking down the barrel at a five-day weekend.

A life unTwitter’d

Posted on by
4

Sorry, gang. My best stuff is over at Twitter these days. But here are a few things that didn’t tweet:

  • Haircut today. With my new hair guy. I lurve him. He is bossy and curt and brusque but he gets it. No, this time I mean it. I thought the European girl got my hair, but she didn’t. And boy, did she mangle it. But this guy gave me a good cut. When I tell him I am growing it out, he doesn’t chop it three inches shorter, he gently guides the Mom Bob to something transitional. He convinced me to buy a tourmaline flat iron. And when I get 20 minutes to myself to actually do the things he told me to do, it looks shiny and flat. He is making up for six months of baaaaaad hair. Just wish I could afford the caviar hair conditioner he is pimping.
  • Cormac will. Not. Sleep. He is up three times a night still and his naps are just kablooey, aside from the late afternoon, where he would sleep six hours at a time if I let him. Little monster.
  • I am trying to lose the baby weight. Well, not the weight so much as the abdominal flub. But after a quick rundown of what I ate yesterday it is obvious I need to start paying a lot more attention.
  • Since school starts on Monday, I’m going to go ahead and assume Iain will not be getting a teaching job in P.A. this year. Drat that 26-week certification process.
  • Owen is really into Star Wars. I’m sure this has nothing at all to do with his 13-year-old uncle who is really into Star Wars. So far his favorite part is the Sand People’s transportation in A New Hope. It looks rather like a dumpster on wheels and so for little Mister Garbageman would be the world’s most perfect vehicle. And — that’s about all of the movie he’s seen. Darth Vader and the garbage car. I certainly don’t want him seeing Episodes 1-3.
  • I haven’t sewn a thing since we got back from camping. It’s far easier to surf Flickr for pictures of pretty things than it is to make them myself.

And that’s all I’ve got! The nice thing about Twitter is that it forces me to be somewhat pithy, whereas here (as evidenced above) I’ll just blather on boringly for many bullet points.

In light of plastics scares and toy recalls

Posted on by
Reply

(Three times in one day! This is a lot of posting. But I’m not happy with anything I’ve written so I’m directing you elsewhere.)

See: This post over at Angry Chicken, called Not Made In China. It’s really a wonderfully thoughtful post, and the best I can do is link to it and demand you go read it. She gives actual solutions to the “whole toy recall thing.” The ideas and links she offers are inspiring and somehow reassuring, which I apparently need, judging by today’s rather high anxiety level.

Baby me

Posted on by
7

While visiting my parents, I dug up some photos of me as a baby. My folks don’t have a scanner, so I resorted to photographing the pictures right in the album.

Maybe I do look like Cormac. Or vice-versa.

Me at two.

wee baby Supa

baby me and the cradle gym

Some of these I’ve never seen before. It’s crazy. I can’t believe that cute kid on the duck (chicken? rooster?) is me. Look at me! With all my original teeth. And blonde hair.

Kind of sad to think of all the awful things that will happen — I mean, not terrible. But still — broken hearts and broken jaws and hurt feelings and cruelty and everything that happens to a person. Kind of sad to think that such things will have to happen to Owen and Cormac, too.

I need some chocolate.

Sewing: A-line skirt

Posted on by
4

“Take it from about here down”

I made this from the skirt pattern in Wendy Mullins’ “Sew U.” I altered the pattern using fit alteration guides in the 1967 edition of McCall’s Sewing Book — the swayback adjustment and the “large abdomen” adjustment. Ha. Did I mention the baby I birthed recently?

To me, half the point of sewing your own clothes is to customize the fit. As we can see here, I haven’t mastered that part yet. But this skirt is a lot more comfortable than the one I made straight from the pattern. With a few more tweaks — taking in the hip just a skoche, repositioning the darts, lengthening the center back seam about half an inch — it’ll fit even better.

What I’ve been doing lately is tracing a pattern (or a shirt) onto dollar-store-quality wrapping paper and then redrawing lines, retracing marks, moving things about, and making a new pattern. It’s amazing what a difference even a quarter of an inch makes when altering your patterns. Next I’m going to try my hand at pants — I keep saying this, but really, I mean it. Imagine having the perfect pants pattern! It’s like the holy grail, only for your butt.

Children! I have two. Sleep? None.

Posted on by
10

They exhaust me. I’ve been SAHMing the last two weeks while Iain takes a course. And guess what? Staying at home with two children is … it’s … holy mackerel, I don’t even have words.

For example. Last Wednesday it took us so long to get ready to leave the house that we never actually left the house. It was naptime. AFTERNOON naptime. That’s how long it takes to corral a loud, curious, temperamental toddler and a two-month-old eating machine. I mean, honestly. By the time Owen is done eating breakfast Mac is hungry again. Then I finish feeding him, and I almost pass out from hunger and so it’s time to feed myself. Then Owen gets into something and Mac needs a diaper change and Owen needs a snack and I need a break and Mac needs to eat and Owen wants help getting into trouble and then it’s lunchtime. Oy vey.

And Cormac! It kills me, how pleasant and cute he is during the daytime. A joy and a pleasure. Cute and gurgly. But at night? Heavens to Betsy, give me mercy. Starting at 12:40 — nearly to the minute, he’s that good — he wants to eat. Then he eats. Then he spends an hour grunting and squirming. Then he sleeps for an hour. Then he’s hungry. I remember looking at the clock hourly last night: three, four, five. Iain took him into the other room after six, giving me three glorious hours of uninterrupted sleep. I knew I married the man for a reason.

And Owen! Since we took away the binkies he has been, ah, less than amenable to the idea of naptime. As in, refusing to take one. He has graciously agreed to Quiet Time, which to his understanding means staying in his room for an hour, tearing it apart and spreading plastic detritus to all four corners. It’s all I get these days, I’ll take it. It’s worth the 45 minutes I need to spend cleaning up later.

And me! A night owl, through and through. It’s cruel. In the mornings I’m about as chipper as Abraham Lincoln. I don’t truly wake up until Oprah. But then I’m good to go until at least 11 p.m — which would be great if my evening shift didn’t start at midnight and last til dawn.

In a scant two weeks I’m going back to work. Nights. Two days a week. Sweet cheerful Moses help me, because I won’t be able to help myself, because I’ll have one child wriggling in my arms and the other one tying my shoelaces together.