Cesspool of
Horrible
Icky
Leisure-threatening
Disease
Who wants to take bets on how long it will take until I am stricken with preschool plague?
January 27, 2012
a child is a
January 25, 2012
Snapshots: cha-cha-changes
snapshots: a photograph (or several) and an isolated observation (or several) about the past week (or so)
It was the little things.
I started noticing the way Aliza says good morning to every single person in the grocery store.
How she asks to see people by name, Asho an Bitney? Dawn an Juweya? Tetya Kewie?
How she goes off to play on her own at playdates when just a few months ago she clung to me and burst into tears if I so much as went to the bathroom without her.
I noticed things in myself, feeling like an hour or two to myself wasn’t enough anymore to re-charge and to be fully present for her all day. I was losing my temper, losing my sense of self, not being the best parent I could be.
So I listened to what she seemed to be saying to me…I’m ready to move on, are you ready to let me mom?
I made a phone call and put her on a wait list for a place I adored. A wonderful place with caring staff, a lovely environment, philosophies that align with our personal ones.
After several weeks of observations, and forms, a test run and getting her new backpack packed and re-packed…
She started “school” last week.
We are both boldly going where we have not gone before.
Wish us luck on the journey.
January 24, 2012
I am ok with gay (and lactation or lack thereof)
I know, I know.
That sounds bizarre.
And vaguely offensive.
What I mean is I’m okay with who you are and your life choices and I want to make sure you know it…
Say you meet a new person, perhaps on vacation, and you suspect that he (or she) is gay. Which is A-OK with you. But they are going to great lengths to conceal this by aggressively hitting on members of the opposite sex, hiding the Barbara Streisand on his playlist or [feel free to insert your gay stereotype of choice.]
So you start to drop hints to communicate that should this person happen to be a boy who likes boys or a boy who likes girls, that you are fully accepting of homosexuality or heterosexuality or asexuality or WHAT HAVE YOU.
Oh I’m from San Francisco!
or
OMG I just loved Brokeback Mountain!
(or My Own Private Idaho if they also happen to be a hipster)
or
My friend and her dads are visiting me this weekend.
(Even if this is a complete fabrication and they are not coming to visit or you don’t have a friend with two dads or friends at all.)
Hopefully these little admissions will make the other person feel comfortable or intrigued or it might backfire and cause them to retreat slowly and un-friend you on Facebook.
Nowadays I find myself doing the same thing but not about who you choose to love but about how you choose to feed your child.
I’ll meet a new mom and I suspect she may be breastfeeding (or breastfeeding a toddler) and feeling weird about it or not breastfeeding and feeling guilty about it.
And I start to drop hints that communicate that I am A-OK with breastfeeding or bottle feeding or extended breastfeeding or exculsively pumping or hating pumping or WHAT HAVE YOU.
I made the funniest joke at this month’s La Leche League meeting.
or
You’re pumping? Kudos to you, pumping sucks! (rimshot)
or
I see that you are choosing [insert infant/toddler/etc feeding choice here] and that’s A-OK with me.
That last one might be kind of direct but effective.
Anyway internets what I mean is I’m okay with who you are and your life choices and I want to make sure you know it.
January 23, 2012
I Heart Faces: By the Book
This week’s photo challenge theme is “By the Book”
