First Day

As our nanny celebrated her last day with us yesterday, we started our new routine today.  I made lunches for the twins last night and packed everything away in the refrigerator to be ready for this morning.  I ironed labels on little shirts and pants (two each), wrote our last name on stacks of diapers, bought two little new blankets, and washed the crib sheets.  When we woke up this morning, we were ready.

All except for Hen-bug's epipen.

As the daycare facility only opened last month, they've not been very organized.  It was only late last Thursday that I received the paper which the daycare facility needed signed by the allergist's office to authorize the epipen.   The allergist's office warned me that the form could take up to two weeks for them to complete, but I begged.  While the daycare apologized for being late with the form, they also wouldn't accept the epipen without the form and they wouldn't accept Hen-bug without the epipen.

This left me sitting in the daycare facility this morning with the boys as what was supposed to be a quick, painless drop-off lengthened into a long wait for a fax.

I think that it ended up being a good thing, though, because it gave the boys time to get used to the room, the daycare providers and the other kids.  Although we had been there before, it was never in the morning and never without the nanny.  They started the morning close by my side.  By the time the fax arrived and I could leave, the boys were playing and barely heard me say "goodbye."

I drove home and had a good, productive work day, knowing they were safe, assuming they were happy.

It was good and it was enough, because when I returned, they ran at me with smiles and chattered the entire way home in the car.

Psycho Mom

The plan, as G. and I have carefully crafted it, involves the nanny helping us to transition the twins into far away daycare before she leaves us at the end of the month.  After about seven months, space would have opened in a much closer daycare, at which time, we'll move the twins again.

It makes all the sense in the world.  The nanny has to leave the state.  We've weighed the options and have decided not to hire another nanny.  Instead, we're placing the twins into the best daycare that we could find, but transitioning to the closer daycare as soon as we can.  If this daycare works for them and for us, we're in it for the long haul.

All the change, though.  It's monstrous.

There are people who thrive on change.  They gravitate to start-up corporations.  They move every few years if not every few months.  They feel nervous without change.

I am not one of those people.

When my husband and I were dating, I asked him to say "L" instead of "love" because I couldn't take the chance.  I couldn't embrace a change that could turn out well, but was more likely to turn out badly.

On the drive to the second daycare to reserve our September spot with a rather large check, I could actually feel my heart beating.  I could almost hear it.  I spent an hour and 1/2 with the center owner going through the center (again), observing the children (again), and quizzing her on center policies (again).  I went over and over and over strategies for helping the twins transition.  I handed her the check.

I walked out to my car.

I went back in and got my check back and drove home.

As soon as I got home, I knew that I made a mistake.  We made the plan for the simple reason that we can't afford to drive all the way across town twice a day for any longer than necessary.  The daycare near our home is a good one, with good people, and a good program.  I got G. for moral support, drove back, and gave the check back to the owner.

You know that place where you doubt every decision?  You feel like you need to stay in one spot and not do anything because anything you do will rock the boat and you're already nauseous from the waves?

I'm in that place.

It's called the couch.  And I'll be here for the foreseeable future.

Saturday Night Reading

Both Hen-Bug and Ty-Baby love those lead-laden Thomas the Train toys with the little wooden tracks.  The joys of the train track hold them longer than anything else.  They gather the trains, hold them, and, when the coast is clear of other kids, run them along the track's hills and valleys. 

I thought that I would build on this love by buying some of the Thomas books.  No sooner did I start reading these out loud, than I ran into a sentence like this one:  "Peep, Peep, said Thomas."  This seemed very odd to me.  In fact, when reading the story out loud, I paused and substituted "choo-choo" for "peep,peep."  I just didn't think that "peep, peep" was a very train-like sound. 

In High School, I spent four months in Amsterdam.  While I was there, I learned many things, one of which was that cows in the Netherlands didn't say "mooooo."  Instead, they go "kooooooo."  So, that's my question.  Do trains in England go peep?  I just don't get it otherwise.

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I usually spend Saturday nights reading and grading papers for my composition courses.  It's a quiet time where I get to use my brain and I really enjoy it.  This group of papers was written for the argument section of the course.  Students are allowed to chose their topic as long as it has two (or more) possible sides.  I give a great deal of counsel about choosing a topic.  I advise students to select something for which they can find evidence and to steer away from topics which ultimately boil down to an individual belief.  These are the topics around which argument swirls but never settles because they involve a central issue which cannot be resolved.  Despite this counsel, I will get a few of these papers.

I usually read these papers carefully, giving advice to the students about slightly twisting their topic to make it more appropriate to the assignment.  However, I came up completely short tonight upon reading this title:  "Homosexual Americans Should Not Be Allowed to Raise Children."

I haven't been able to read any further.

Believe me, students write arguments that conflict with my personal beliefs all the time.  Monitoring personal feelings and reading the paper for the argument, evidence, structure, and mechanics is essential.  Sometimes, I think that not agreeing with my students makes me a better reader of their papers.  It's the papers voicing opinions that I endorse that I have to read more closely, making sure that the student really has hit all of the requisite points and refuted the opposition. 

Maybe I can't even start reading this paper because it involves children.  Maybe it's because I've known parents, who happen to be gay, and who love and struggle and worry about their children just as I do.  I just don't want to hear this argument, much the less critique it, at least right now.

Getting Back to Normal

Just as you thought he would, Hen-bug sprang back to normal and now enjoys a much more reasonable amount of tantrum time.  Unfortunately, I managed to contract a nasty cold and spent all day yesterday in bed, watching my Christmas gift of Project Runway, Season Three.

Watch five to six hours of anything and it gets in your head, so I thought that I typed the URL in wrong when I got Google Deutschland.  Typed it in again, same thing.  I've been searching das web all day long.  Either it's sabotage, a glitch, or Google has decided to give Germany a day in the sun.  If the later is the case, I hope that we all get to enjoy Google Greenland someday soon.

I started feeling better this morning, just in time to start my week of cleaning and home improvement.  This is actually a compromise.  If it was up to me, it would be all home improvement all the time.  But, my lovely husband gently suggested a little bit of cleaning would be in order, especially as we haven't really cleaned the house since the twins were born.

For anyone keeping track, that would be two years ago.

The good thing about infrequent cleaning is that all the supplies you could ever need are at the ready.  As you can probably tell, I don't really like to clean.  I don't really see the point of it.  I mean, yes, you want to maintain a certain level of cleanliness just so nobody accuses you of living in a frat house.  Other than that, though, isn't it just going to get dirty again?  And dusting?  I just don't get dusting. 

I am, however, a compulsive straightener.  Surfaces must be clear with items arranged in tidy groups.  Things that are not currently in use should be thrown away, given away, or stored.  My philosophy about this is that my thoughts aren't terribly organized, so the space around me must be tidy.  Otherwise, it's just chaos. 

So, which are you?  A cleaner?  A straightener?  Or both?

Post Baby Shower Report

Of course, it went just fine.  There was cake.  There was punch and soft-drinks (no wine)!  And there was a lot of ooohhing and ahhhing over little pink onesies and booties.

The first nanny, whom I was afraid to see, proved to be more afraid to see me.  She showed up 15 minutes before the party's official beginning, made some excuses, dropped off her present, and left.  I am an object of fear, apparently.  Feeeeear Meeeee.....bwhahahaha!

I did have fun. 

However, the party made me think.  After all, I have a degree in English.  There's nothing much that doesn't make me think.

There were several groups of people there.  While I could talk to all of them, I didn't click firmly with any of these groups.  Some nannies attended as well as the neighborhood stay-at-home moms.  They were all dressed nicely, in jeans and dressy shirts.  One of them brought her daughter who had bows in her hair and handed out the presents.  Since I stay at home, too, I felt something in common with these women - right down to the jeans and the silk blouse.  But, they lost me when they started talking about the next playgroup outing.

The other group of women were colleagues of the nanny's employer, a lawyer.  They all had pointy-toed shoes, dress pants, and per--fect hair.  These working mothers were the group with whom I should have the most in common.  After all, I'm a working mother.  I give the children to the nanny in the morning and gather them up in the evening.  I have career and I travel for business.  I enjoy what I do and it's a big part of my identity. 

Somehow, it wasn't quite enough.  It wasn't that they all worked in the same office; it was that they all had the experience of going to work at an office. 

I used to do this, too.  Our office, after being open for seven years, closed three years ago with employees dispersed to work from home.  While I like the flexibility, I miss having colleagues.

So, it seems that I have a toe in both worlds.  I stay at home, but I work.  It makes it difficult to find people with whom I fit exactly.  It makes things a little lonely.  However, it's good for the family.  Since I don't have a commute, I only have eight hours away from the boys rather than nine or ten.  I talk to the nanny all the time and get constant reports of how the boys are doing.

It's the best of both worlds, even when that world involves a baby shower.

Peace, War, and English Compostion

Many of my students are either at war, going to war, or moving away from war.

It's not the population that I trained myself to teach.

I did most of my graduate student teaching at a large research university.  Most of my students were traditional college age and, while some took full advantage, others didn't completely understand the opportunities they had as a result of attending large research university.  Many students doubted that they belonged in my course.  Writing was not something they needed to learn.

The gyrations I trained myself to perform to interest, engage, and convince large research university  learners are not needed for my current population.  As I teach completely online courses, my learners could be any where in the world.  They could be on board ship or sent on assignment at short notice.  I learned to respect these obligations and become completely flexible about deadlines.  It doesn't matter when students submit essays as long as they submit them at some point and take my comments into consideration.  These students want to learn to write.  Most come into class recognizing the importance of clear writing that communicates their point.  It's up to me to guide them, work with them, and give them what they need to succeed.

After teaching in this format for three years, I feel like I know these learners.

Every semester, they have to write an essay detailing an event in their lives and drawing meaning from that event.  It's always a struggle to have them write about a single event rather than their entire lives or years in their lives.  I get a lot of stories about weddings and the birth of children.  The greatest number of papers that I receive, however, focus on the decision to join to army.  The second favorite topic seems to be war and survival in the face of death.

When I was growing up, I attended a different, but no less large or research oriented institution, than the one where I learned to teach. I knew that I could make mistakes.  Like my first students, I made them in abudance.  I skipped class.  I drank too much.  I didn't study.  I wrote my papers an hour before class.  However, I couldn't get into too much trouble.  I also made my decisions buoyed by the invisible support net of relative wealth, privilege and expectation.

My current students usually have no such net.  Those that write about the decision to join the army universally draw the conclusion that the opportunity to do so saved them - from crime, from boredom, from aimlessness, from poverty, from abusive relationships, from all sorts of things.  The army gave them a structure and a productive place to belong.  These type of students also write, full of pride, about the day where they earned promotion or advanced in rank.  They describe hard days of work, evenings of study, and the ceremonies of public recognition.

The tenor of these essays differ markably from those that concentrate on war, itself.  In fact, if you didn't know better, the two armies, the one that saves and the one that fights, would seem to have nothing to do with each other.  The students that describe being under fire and surviving also exude a certain pride; however, it is a pride tinged with grief and guilty relief.  There is very little triumph.  It is also these learners who go on to write their argument papers about the war and our reasons for war.

The knowledge and thought that goes into these papers has, perhaps unfairly, astonished me.   I thought that I would read paper after paper after paper justifying the war and our presence in Iraq.  Although I do get a fair number of those, I also get a good number that make the case against the war and for leaving the country.  Regardless of the point of view, the papers on this topic have a tendancy to be well argued and well researched, with an effective blend of personal experience and secondary sources.

Reading these papers, all of them, has made me angry.

There has got to be a way of reconciling these two armies, the army that so many young people credit with "saving" them, but does so only to throw them in the path of danger.  Now, granted, not all my learners feel this way about the army; students join for all sorts of reasons.  However, there has still got to be a better way.  One that does not depend on war.

Business Trip

I'm in Vegas until tomorrow on business.  G. hates Vegas, in fact, he summarizes the city by saying that it has "too much crap."  On the other hand, I like Vegas.  The energy, the noise, the lights, invigorate me.  However, Vegas is like any other city in that it's hard to manage on your own.

I try, though.

I grabbed a book and arrived early to eat at one of the restaurants at the Wynn.  I got a good seat, right by the waterfall, ordered a glass of wine and tipped big.  Later, I walked down the promenade when a shoe display caught my eye.  A tasteful bronze plaque by the door read "Manolo Blahnik"

I went in.

I looked around and picked up one pair, then another.  When a sales lady approached, I asked if we were allowed to try on the shoes (oh my God, I'm such an idiot).  She said, "sure!"  She brought out a patent leather pair in my size (40 1/2).  And I tried them on.

I have to tell you.  They were gorgeous and walkable, even with the 4 inch heels. 

Of course, I couldn't do it.  I mean, they were much too expensive for shoes, but it was fun just to have them on my feet.  I was glad that I tried them on, and glad that I ended up in Vegas on this trip.  G. and the twins are very far away, but I'll be seeing them tomorrow.  For tonight, it was lovely to have a night on my own.

One of those Days

I was going to spend my "lunch hour" tackling this Wednesday's Hump Day HMMM, but life interrupted in the form of a phone call from my nanny.

Yes, my nanny works downstairs.  I was working upstairs.  She called from our home phone to my cell. 

It turns out that she had to drive to a town two hours away in order to renew the contract on their rental car.  Her husband had the forms to do it but didn't fill them out.  In order to avoid late charges, she had to physically turn in the car and, presumably, rent a new one.  This was a real emergency for them, so I just told her to go.

Last week, our neighbors who also have twins, had an issue where their nanny needed to spend two days in the hospital with her husband.  The solution?  Well, he was out of town and she had depositions for an important trial, so their kids came over to our house and our nanny watched all four kids.  Our nanny got some extra money and our kids had two nice, long playdates, but we didn't even get a phone call. 

I'm glad that we could help out; however, a quick "thank you" from the neighbors would have gone a long way with me.  They never called us.  They never contacted us at all.  The entire thing was worked out through the nannies.  And, yes, the neighbors knew all about the arrangements.

Faced with an afternoon of work and no nanny, I should have just told her to call the neighbor's nanny, get the okay, and walk the kids down the street.  But that's just not me.   I have trouble asking people for favors and that counts double with people whom I'm not sure that I like.

I ended up playing with the twins all afternoon and will be working into the night as a result.  However, the whole situation has left a bad taste in my mouth - one that I'm not entirely sure how to rinse out. 

In Which I Have a Life

My whole working life was up-ended, rather casually, last week by an older woman who came to the coffee house.  She brought her computer and was there for a long time, just like me.  At first, she sat down near the front of the store, but eventually, she moved toward the back of the coffee house, back where there were fewer outlets and where the conversations of other folks couldn't be heard as loudly.

And, last Friday, when I arrived at the coffee house, there she was.  Sitting in my seat.

It would be gentle indeed to call me a creature of habit.  Like my dad before me, I'm a devotee of routine.  Once I find something that works, I stick with it until forced by unimaginable pressures, to change.  Since I was small, I've brushed my teeth with Crest, worn my hair long, and gotten up fairly early in the morning.  I've read myself to sleep almost every night since I could read, buying a tiny flashlight to account for George's odd need to fall asleep in the dark.

I've been working out of the coffee house almost every day, sitting in the same seat in the back, so you can imagine what upheaval this caused in my world.  I argued with G on Sunday night, trying to convince him that I had to leave the house early, early, early, before the nanny arrived to take care of the twins, just so I could claim my seat.

It didn't work.  When I got there early, she just got there earlier.  There just wasn't anything I could do, so, as a last ditch effort, I tried to talk to her.

If I ever doubted that I was a little on the odd side, I was proven wrong the minute that I tried to talk a woman out of sitting in "my" seat in a public coffee shop.  It turns out that she likes the seat, too.  She gets there every morning just so she can sit there.  If I wanted to sit there, she suggested, why don't I just get there earlier.

But I just can't, because, you know, I actually want to give the twins their breakfast, to get them up, to dress them, and to play with them in the morning.  Even if I didn't want to do these things, I would do them because to shirking them would be to risk a bit of quite justified frustration on G's part, which would make my life much more difficult than not having my favorite seat in a coffee shop.

It turns out that I do have a bit of a life.

Unlike that other woman.  Ha.

Surreal Life

Where I am right now, sitting in a hotel room in a big city, is my surreal life.  When living this life, I sleep uninterrupted in a comfortable bed, have drinks with friends, go out to eat frequently, and have more time to myself than I get in the typical week. 

What makes it so surreal, I think, is that I've been traveling for business for about seven years now and business travel has not really changed.  Sure, I have more club points and am much better at hailing cabs, but the getting on and getting off planes has not changed at all.  On the other hand, my life around the travel has changed quite a bit.  Where my travel life and my home life used to be rather similar, the two could now not be any more different.

And even though G spent Monday night holding a very hot Hen-Bug, I can't but think that the difference in my travel life and my home life is a very good thing.

Although I still enjoy the hectic still-newness of travel, it's getting more and more difficult to leave home.  I'm not talking about the heart-tearing experience of leaving and returning to the twins, who are just beginning to realize that I go away from time to time, but the practical side of leaving.  I'm talking the packing, cell-phone charger taking, not missing your plane side of leaving.

I didn't miss my plane on Monday, but it was close.  First, I put off packing for the entire weekend so the first thing I had to do when I got up Monday morning was to pack my bag.  This would have been fine except for the fact that it had never been unpacked from the last trip.  This meant doing laundry before packing it again.  Then, I had to make the handouts and print out some itineraries for my trip.  I could have done this over the weekend, but I didn't want to take the time out of being with the twins.

Two hours from takeoff, I thought I was fine ..... except, I could not find my wallet.  I looked high and low before realizing that it was in my diaper bag.  This would also have been fine, except for the fact that the diaper bag was in George's truck. Having overindulged a bit at Sunday's superbowl party, George had a friend take him home with the result that the truck was sitting in a driveway of a house located in the opposite direction from the airport.  So, in a panic, I threw everything into my car, kissed the boys, flew over to the truck, got the wallet, and then drove to the airport.

Of course, I made the flight, but only because it was delayed about 30 minutes.  And although I was relieved, I can't help but wonder why it's getting so hard to go.

The Process of Motherhood

I've been thinking a lot about motherhood.  Quite frankly, I never thought of becoming a mother as a process.  I always believed that I would be a mother the minute I had children.  And, that's true.  If you have children, you are a mother.  Even though when someone says "mom," as pediatricians are prone to do, you look around the room for your mother.

The minute that I heard we couldn't have children without IVF, I became one half of an infertile couple.  The process was so instantaneous that it wasn't really a process.  Becoming a mother ... thinking of myself as a mother has been exactly the opposite. 

I think that it's taken so long for me to feel like a mother, to be confident as a mother, partially because of infertility.  It seems to me that most women use the nine months of pregnancy (or, seven and a half months in my case) to start feeling and thinking of themselves as mothers.  For fertile women, the celebration seems to start almost immediately.  I've had co-workers gleefully inform me that they were "going to become mothers" mere weeks after a first missed period.  I've witnessed these same women making huge baby-related purchases at a time when I was still trying, and mostly failing, to whisper the word "pregnant."

In my case, I regret how long it took me to feel comfortable with my pregnancy, to begin feeling like I was "going to become a mother."  As soon as I started to believe that I could start preparing for the babies, I was in the hospital on bedrest.   And when they finally arrived, I was so overwhelmed with simply taking care of them and doing what needed to be done that I only worried about not "feeling" like a mother in passing. 

I didn't believe that I was a mother during our struggle with infertility and the pregnancy; however, I felt the potential within myself, like the seeds within an apple core.  I could see myself as a mother.  I could imagine it vividly and desired it, the good and the bad, without respite.  Ironically, as the reality has overtaken the fantasy, feeling like a mother has seemed far out of reach.  Although I'm sure that one day, mother will be as much a part of my identity as working woman, wife, writer, and shoe-lover, working towards that identity seems to be much more of a process than I thought it would be. 

I think that I'm enjoying it, though.  In fact, I know that I'm enjoying it.  All I need to do is to take some of the pressure off and realize that the pressure to feel like a mother and to know exactly what I'm doing as a mother, comes from myself, not from any external source.  It certainly doesn't come from the babies who are happy, smiling, and laughing....oh the laughter.  It sounds like their entire body would explode if they didn't laugh and it's the best sound in the entire world.