It's Been Five Years

Five years ago, almost exactly, was the DARK DAY when I thought I wasn't going to get tenure and I thought I wasn't going to have a Tiny Boy.

I wasn't really thinking about this except in a vague, wow-I-have-a-four-year-old sort of way.

But.

Yesterday I had a massage (this was scheduled months ago, actually) to work on some chronic neck/shoulder stuff.  I've had a migraine off and on for the past week, and she was working on something at the base of my skull and I just started crying.  Sobbing, actually.  Never even registered an emotional response like "I'm sad"....just a purely physical thing.

And then last night I had a whacked-out dream about meeting a younger version of Dr. Gorgeous, and then Tiny Boy woke me up at 5:15 and that was the end of that.

But the combo of the massage and the dream says something is going on in my head.  Not sure what, really...  if I figure it out, I'll let you know!

When It Rains

Well, having just completed the mad dash through one search committee, it looks like I'm now going to be chairing another (for a fixed-term position).  And that will have drama.  Indeed, the drama has already begun.  And it's the first of my Big Event Weeks of the spring, with a guest writer driving in tomorrow, hopefully not in heaps of snow, so of course Tiny Boy started vomiting about 4 a.m.

This was after I'd gotten to bed late, because my thesis advisee just learned she'd been rejected from all the grad programs to which she replied and, honestly, it hurt me too.  She's one of the few I can truly look at and see myself half my life ago, and she's usually so excited and full of sparkly optimism--and, frankly, she should have gotten into grad school*--it just sucked to see her crushed. There was evening consoling to do.

So, my sleep deficit is climbing; it's 9:30 and LG still isn't sleeping.  Tiny Boy drank chocolate rice milk before bed, which I fully expect him to throw up in the next few hours, but I'm really hoping he doesn't, because I'd really like him to go to school tomorrow so I can get back to work...




* But, yeah, something like 10 spots and 300+ applicants at that sorts of places she applied.  It's not personal, it's math....but also really personal.

When Everything Is a Battle

It's not that I think I have parenting all figured out.  But I do have some basic strategies, after twelve years, for dealing with many situations that arise.  But the NOT LISTENING and, related but worse, OUTRIGHT DEFIANCE have me absolutely stumped.

Like I actually wonder if Tiny Boy has oppositional defiant disorder.  Like I'm thinking about taking him to a child psychologist.  Like the tenacity that allowed him to survive life in my hostile uterus has now become a personality disorder.

Getting a child to take a bath or eat dinner or strapped in the carseat should not take so much energy.  But it does.

Boundaries for the Pre-Teen

LG has a half-day today.  She decided she wanted to go to a movie with a friend.  I don't remember now if it was my idea or her idea, but the idea evolved that she and the friend would go solo.  I would drop them off, be reachable by phone, pick them up when it ended.  I liked this plan.

The friend's mother initially agreed and has now decided to take the afternoon off work to take them, which makes me feel all kinds of weird.

*

I've been leaving LG alone for increasing amounts of time.  Initially 30 minutes, then an hour, and now up to about two.  She always knows how to reach me.  She knows about basic safety.  She locks the doors, etc.

I don't leave her alone with Tiny Boy for more than 15-20 minutes.  I know she knows what to do in an emergency, but they're siblings, and he doesn't necessarily always respect her as an authority (nor does she behave like one).  She does better if I PAY her in these situations.

*

I did not let LG go trick or treating with friends, without friend's parent.  That was dark.  Rainy.  Night.  Outside.

I was also the parent who said, about a year ago, no LG did not have permission to watch a particular movie (I can't remember PG-13 or R) at a friend's house.

Inside a movie theater, seeing a kid's movie?  How is that really any different than doing a kids program at the library?  Or even going on a school trip?  Isn't that safer than letting the kids take a walk, which involved crossing streets, to get a cookie from a bakery (which is something these two did together)?

I don't think the mom is wrong.  But I do wonder about "normal" boundaries for kids this age, and how other parents make their decisions.  Just musing...

Spring Break 2016

(Apparently spring break is good for blogging!)

It's my spring break this week and it has been springy (all the snow has melted, except for those big nasty piles in parking lots) and it's been something resembling a break.  I had major plans and of course realized by Tuesday they weren't all going to happen.  I decided the most important thing was just slowing down the pace, and checking some things to do off my lists.  I bring you the gist of it, across four major categories (work, household, personal, relationships). Doesn't include the more banal stuff...

• Complete curriculum paperwork (this was the bulk of Tuesday)
• Edit introduction to co-edited book collection (maybe four hours?)
• Edited some other stuff for the collection (another few hours)
• Major administrative annoyance (this was basically all day Monday)
• Read (among other things, chunks of Smarter, Faster, Better; Reclaiming Conversation; Voyage of the Sable Venus; The Book of Salt)
• Ran some errands, one of which involved LG-and-Mom-Time
• Took Tiny Boy out for breakfast, which resulted in my anger management post, but it was nice for the first 45 minutes
• Went to Hobby Lobby, bought some craft supplies, and started an art project
• Cleaned my desk (mostly, there's still a small pile to deal with, having to do with taxes)
• Cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen (it's better, anyway)
• Did a deep clean on the litter box, as it's been a while)
• Went to lunch with friends
• Took one yoga class
• Went on four walks
• Baked brownies and banana muffins
• Cooked two new dishes for dinner, one of which was so spicy it was largely inedible, but I'll try it again with 50% less chili paste
• Made some phone calls from my list of annoyances
• Got a massage!  (Granted, it left me in PAIN but did get rid of the knot that had created a multi-day migraine)
• Watched pilots of three TV shows (House of Cards, West Wing, and Breaking Bad--turns out I don't like political dramas.  I'll give Breaking Bad a few more eps before making a call)

Tonight I'm going to take a bath (yay clean tub), watch a WHOLE MOVIE (LG has a sleepover), and hopefully enjoy some time with Tiny Boy who will probably want me to buy him a piece of pizza on the way home.

The list of the undone includes: actually bringing tax stuff to the tax guy; buying a chair for the living room and a bookcase for Tiny Boy (these were on my SUMMER 2015 list!); calling about misc. home repair (now that the snow is gone); taking the car in for oil change; going to the bank; dealing with the ongoing saga that is my relationship with AT&T; purchasing an iPad (research money--yay!).  Some of this will be done over the weekend and next week; some will be put off for a while longer.  It's going to be an intense ~7 weeks left.  And then I teach summer school :)

Anger Management

The other day LG and several other kids were turned away from taking the SAT for stupid bureaucratic reasons (apparently 12-year-olds are instructed NOT to put a photo on their SAT registration, which needs to be done on paper, not online, BUT they still need a govt issued photo ID to take the test).  I was annoyed, to be sure, mostly because I was dealing with an anxious 12-year-old, a squirrely 4-year-old, and we'd gotten up early and had been at this point waiting for about 40 minutes, and all of this could have been prevented if guidelines were clearer by the Gifted and Talented program for which she was taking the test.  Not a big deal.  Retake it in May.  Whatever.

But another parent in the same situation was INSANELY angry.  Like, adult having a temper tantrum angry.  After he left the building, we could still hear him screaming in the parking lot.  Screaming.  I worried briefly that he might have a gun.  I felt so awful for his kid.  I talked about it with my own.

*

I'm thinking a lot about anger these days.  And my March "goal" is to demonstrate more patience with my kids and less anger.  I'm sure there's some deep Freudian issue here, but I'm not really interested in thinking about my relationships with my parents or behaviors that were modeled for me (and no I don't think of my mother as a particularly angry person but I also don't think we were taught very good mechanisms for dealing with emotions).  I am concerned, though, about the behaviors I model for my kids.  And I'm worried that Tiny Boy's anger issues are the result of my own.  (That said, I don't really know that Tiny Boy has "anger issues"--he's four, a strong personality, and lacks impulse control.  It's a work in progress.)

The irony here is that I'm a pretty even tempered person in most of my dealings.  But being a parent (a single parent?) has certainly showed me the darker parts of my personality.  I know I'm more patient with my kids when I'm well rested and have my own basic needs met.  We've removed one of my major triggers with Tiny Boy's new bedtime routine (I am not kidding when I say that melatonin has made me a better parent).  I also know that this is a tough age; 3.5-4.25 was probably my most challenging time with LG, and it seems to be with Tiny Boy as well.  

Mostly it's the combined not listening from the two of them that makes me nuts.  And a lot of that has to do with screen time, which I have now banned in the morning for Tiny Boy in ALL forms (he'd been watching a video on his LeapPad in the car while driving LG to school).  LG and I need to uphold contractual arrangements.  Next up, I banish the TV completely, which feels strange to me given my own love of TV.

It seems odd to me to deal with MY issues via changing THEIR behaviors, though.  What I'm going to do on my end is wear a rubberband (I feel like NicoleAndMaggie mentioned this) because, really, I don't think it's about me THINKING about anger and coming up with an action plan in the abstract.  I need something concrete to short circuit my own escalating thoughts about a situation and then deal with it rationally.  And if that doesn't work, I think I'll go back to therapy.  And maybe start drinking vodka.

Once Upon a Time I Started the Process of Donating Embryos

It's been a while since I mentioned the whole donating embryos thing.  Mostly because the plan has been both literally and metaphorically on ice...the intended recipient is moving slowly, which I understand and respect.

I'm still feeling good about it, both the decision to donate in general and the specific situation.  It's what I wanted, in a way, for Dr. Gorgeous to set up a match.  She did, although it wasn't intentional on her part.

The thing that worries me the most at this point is not the details of "what if it works," but rather "what if it doesn't."  I know I'll feel responsible, even though logically that makes no sense.  I worry about what it will do to my relationship with recipient, which is developing into a real friendship.  And I worry about what it will do to me, if it fails or worse, if it ends in a miscarriage.

There was one very lucky, hardy embryo in that batch.  I hope there's one more.

Dealing with the Crazy

So...as I've alluded to (stated outright?) I have a batshit crazy colleague.  (Actually multiple, but only this one takes it to a level that makes me want to quit my job.)  I'm really at a loss for what to do.  It's at a point that every time I send an email to folks in my program I know she'll find some problem with some small detail and blow it way out of proportion.  She'll use words like "equity" and "fairness" which makes it very difficult to disagree with her without coming across as an asshole, but what fairness really means is that she gets what she wants (that is, the definition is constantly changing).  So spring break began for me with an email from her telling me I'm violating guidelines (that I made, and that she and all other faculty approved) because I asked her for clarification.  Had I not asked her for clarification on this particular issue (that is to say, had I not given her the benefit of the doubt but just plowed ahead based on the limited information she provided) there would have been nothing for her to take issue with.  She is, in the words of another colleague, a bully.  Which is not a word I would have used, but I think it's right.  And there's really no one to talk to (I have cc'd my dept chair from time to time, but I'm trying to be discrete, and professional, as she is a junior person) and even when I've explained the situation to friends who haven't been the target, I sound paranoid.  I'm pretty fair-minded, even-tempered, and diplomatic when it comes to my job; I certainly don't like everybody, but she is literally the only person I simply cannot work with.  And that's going to be a big fat mess when she goes up for tenure.

Tell Me What to Watch

TV is my vice.

While I still watch much less than the average American, and I have gone through periods (comps!) in which I watched absolutely nothing, it's been pretty much a night-time staple since my pregnancy with Tiny Boy.

I'm looking for recs.  I don't watch commercial television.  (What little I do, I stream.  Right now that's limited to The Good Wife.)  I have access to neflix and amazon prime video.  While I like dark dramas I can't watch them before bed, which is when I watch TV.  I just finished Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Mozart in the Jungle, loved them both.  What are other things I've overlooked?

thanks!

Marching On

So basically all the good habits I established in January fell by the wayside in the past two or so weeks.  Four snow days, four job candidates, president's day, three trips to Hip City, what else?

I need to get my groove back.

Spring break is next week.  Such a weird concept when there's a foot of snow on the ground.  It will need to be a working break, as I haven't yet met a book deadline (not a hard deadline, but beginning of March), I have a curriculum deadline (also beginning of March), and there's some other stuff (life admin stuff, like taxes).  I'm going to see if I can't fit in a massage, at least one lunch with friend, a movie, a novel.

I'd like to get back to exercising (this is the habit that never really got off the ground, alas).  And my interpersonal goal is to be less snippy with the kids.  More on that tomorrow.  I have to meet another job candidate for another breakfast in less than 11 hours.  Oy.