Space

"I am always so ready for Myah to go down for her nap, but then once she's down, I can't wait for her to wake up again.  Do you know what I mean?"

"Totally."

No.  Actually, I feel the exact opposite.

The above quotes are from an exchange my sister, Tammy, and I had before her youngest was born.  We were both mothers of one girl.  Her daughter is two years older than mine.  Tammy was describing the feeling she has about spending all of her time with her daughter, why she lets her stay up late (Myah's bedtime has always coincided with her parents bedtime), how she comes home from work before going to the store so that she can take Myah with her, and so on.

I, on the other hand, transitioned Celaya into her own room when she was around 9 months.  She has a routine 8 o'clock bedtime, 8:30 is pushing it.  I prefer to go to the grocery store before or after work, alone.  And while I don't necessarily look forward to her nap, I pray to the nap gods that she will stay asleep for at least an hour and a half once she goes down.

Why?

For a long time I felt guilty about this difference between myself and not only my sister but many mothers.  Do I love my daughter less?  Do I have less of a connection with her than other women have with their children?

20 months after she was born I now realize more and more that it not only has nothing to do with a lack of mother/daughter bond or connection, but, in reality, it has nothing to do with her at all.  I have always been this way.  Since I left home, a small house perpetually crowded with people of all ages, shapes, and sizes, I have craved, more than anything else in the world, one thing:  space.

Only recently have I really been able to come to terms with my need for space, and this last week while my mother was here for 11 days, I felt fully aware of the one thing I was missing.  I had no time inside my own head.  Celaya went down, and my mother was here.  I came home from work at night, and my mother was here.  Don't mistake my meaning.  I love having her here and would have kept her longer if I could have, but the truth is that if she lived here, if she stayed for longer, I would make it a point to accommodate my need for space.

I feel bad about it sometimes.

"Go to bed," I tell Carlos when I find him still up when I get home from work.  "I want to come home to a dark, quiet house.  You need your sleep.  It's win-win."

Evil, right?

How could I insist that my sweet husband who only wants to spend some time with me go to bed and leave me alone?

Because it makes me a better person.  I'm sure of it.

If I can have my own personal quiet time, just a little bit each day, I can give everything else to everyone else the rest of the time.
I need my time to write.
I don't want to blog while the TV is on in the background.
I need time to watch my silly shows.
I don't watch TV while my daughter is awake.
I need time to focus on myself, to just think.
I don't think about myself, my needs, my goals, my personal feelings, when other people are around.  I am concerned with them, their needs, their goals, their personal feelings.  I am serving, cleaning, cooking, tending, loving, smooching, snuggling, listening, etc.  And I love these things so much that I can fully embrace each moment and give everything I've got.

But only if I get my space.

If I don't get my space, I become irritable, frustrated, curt, I make stupid mistakes, I get negative, I basically become downright bitchy.  And nobody likes me bitchy, especially not me.

It's Official

I am a bike commuter.

I have been working it out since I first had an inkling a couple months back that my car had taken a (huge oil leak quickly getting bigger) turn for the worse.

Do I need a car?  I asked myself.

Celaya hates the car, I reminded myself.

Next thing I know, I'm on the side of the road, having barely made it to the top of a freeway exit in the middle of the night on my way home from work with an overheated car.

On a positive note, a handful of samaritans stopped and offered help.  I do so love reminders of all the big and small good in the world.

So there I was, a few days later, determined that I would not spend a ton of money on repair, already working out the logistics of simply deciding to not have a car, and the key to my car goes missing.

Our mechanic shows up to take a look under the hood, and the very expensive to replace key is simply vanished.  Gone.  Nowhere to be found.  Sorry, mechanic, we'll call you if we ever find the key.

How embarrassing.

However, after freaking out about all my books for the classes I teach on Sundays being trapped inside the vault-like Volvo, my next thought was, "FREE!!"

If all of this drama with the car is not a clear indication from some powerful force (namely me) to go ahead with my bike commuter idea, then wait until you hear the rest.

A coworker lives right next to BART in Dublin, which is where I would need to get in order to work in San Ramon, and she has graciously agreed to pick me up and drop me off the two days a week I work in San Ramon.  My other office, in Berkeley, is a mere 1.5 miles from BART.  We have two perfectly functioning bikes.  I have been working (in a happy half assed quite unsuccessful way) to lose my last 30 pounds of baby weight (yea, it started at 70).  I live in the Bay Area, where it rarely rains nonstop.  My stepmother works for Hertz, so if I need to rent a car on rainy day occasions, or any other occasions, I get a great deal.  My brother and I have the same days off, so I can always recruit his driving skills (more likely just his truck while he lies about in bed) for grocery shopping or errand running.

And really, the list goes on.

The only negative I have found in my weeks of working this whole plan out in my head is that I am beginning my giant adventure right smack in the middle of the fall season, staring cold winter and rainy spring in the face.

But, honestly, even this minor detail is not a negative because I just see it as an excuse to go shop for gear.

I do want to own a car again.  But I want to buy my dream car:  a cute, modern (read high tech) little SUV that is eco-friendly and that I won't have to take a huge loan out for.  Right now I am looking at the 2010 Ford Edge.  My goal is to plan and save (and bike) for the next year, and take it from there.

So there you have it:  Woman Wife Mama is now officially a bike commuter.

Oh, and today, on my very first wonderful riding day out, I came across the perfect little flat bar road bike in all black with hot pink accents that I am now convinced I need as a serious bike commuter.

So the Edge may have to wait an extra month or two...

Veterans

I am wary of all oppositional expressions and phrases.  Ever since I discovered the reality of the false dichotomy I have watched and listened closely for them in articles I read and in discussions I have.

The most obvious example of this right now is the question on the debit/credit keypad at Safeway:

"Support the Veterans?"

And you can choose "Yes" or "No."

Choosing yes obviously means you will donate money to the Safeway Foundation. Choosing no obviously means you do not support the veterans.

Wait.  What?

Yes, you read that correctly.  Every time you choose no, you are in effect responding that, no, you do not support the veterans.

What if you have no extra money?

Well, if you really supported the veterans, you would manage to scrounge up a dollar, at the very least, for the men and women who have fought to protect our freedom.

Can I choose "yes," and not give money?  As in, yes, I do support the troops, but I am not going to donate money every single time I come through a Safeway checkout stand and have to pay with my debit card, or even, perhaps, at all.

Well then, once again, you are clearly lying about your support of the troops, because the only way to show this support would be to donate money.

Ultimately, I am grateful that Safeway and other companies, like Whole Foods, make the effort as major corporations to do some good in the world.  And I am aware that the guilt marketing strategy is effective; Safeway continues to surpass its set goals and outdo its previous years of charitable contributions.

What I do not like is being treated like I'm stupid, or inferior, by essentially being forced to respond that, no, I do not support the veterans, which is not the reality, nor do I think it is the reality for many people who choose not to donate on a particular day.

Aside from money, aside from celebrating a national holiday, what I choose to do primarily for any cause that I support is talk about it.  Get the information out.  Open discussions about what veterans really experience, about what our soldiers are experiencing now, what is being done for veterans who suffer from PTSD, what programs are in place for reintegration into a civilian society that certainly does not act like it is at war, much less does it have any consciousness about the bloody violence that a soldier may have experienced just last week, or the residual effects of being constantly in fear for your life.

The worst thing we can do is not talk about the sensitive subjects our communities, our country, and our world face for fear of offending someone or, goddess forbid, having a disagreement.

In addition to talking, we can actually do something ourselves.  We can take action, one person, one small gesture at a time.

In honor of the veterans, and at the same time in a nod to my husband, who is not from this country, I would like to share an example.

Carlos, my brother, my sister, and my brother-in-law, went to the 49ers game yesterday, and apparently, while Carlos was in line for beer, he was standing behind two marines.  When the marines got to the front of the line, Carlos paid for their beers.  Just like that, simple, because they fought for our country.

The only reason I know about this is because, in the process, he forgot to buy my brother the beer he promised him, and so Teno arrived home that night complaining about it.

I don't know if Carlos even realized that the next day was Veteran's Day.  Certainly no sign hung above their heads urging people to buy veteran's and/or soldiers beer, or donate to them in some way.

He just did it because he's Carlos.

So while I think that charity is important, and even that it is one way to support causes you believe in, I think that that charity, in whatever form that takes, should come from the heart, always, or else it is just another empty expression, like, "Support the Troops?"

None of These Diapers Are Working!

Every once in a while, since I began using special overnight diapers for Celaya, she will leak through the diaper overnight and her pajamas get a little bit wet.  On even rarer occasions, her sheet gets wet as well, and I have to change it.

Because I was certain that this was not right, I went in search of a better overnight diaper.

I was originally using Huggies brand, because this is the same diaper she wears during the day, and like I said, she only leaked through them once in a great while.

So, I happened to be in CVS and saw Pampers "Guaranteed Night Lock" diaper.

Great! I thought.  I can't go wrong with "Guaranteed Night Lock."

The first night, nothing.  Completely dry on the outside.  This was it.  I had found a winner.  I was so happy, I opened the entire package, unloaded the diapers and stacked them neatly on my nightstand, where we get Celaya ready for bed at night.

The next three nights in a row Celaya soaked through the diapers, once so bad that I had to change the sheet and the thick blanket I have beneath it in her crib.

Well, whatever, I thought to myself.  The diapers are cute and they fit her well, so I'll just use them during the day and head out in search of another brand.

Next came a trip to Target with my mom, where I found Luvs brand overnight diaper.  "Absolutely no leaking.  12 hour guaranteed or your money back."

Yes!  I reasoned, if they are offering to give your money back, they must be serious about this overnight diaper.  I bought them, opened them, and stacked them up in their new happy home.

The first night in the diaper she leaked through the diaper, through her pajamas, all up the front of her body and the back, through the sheet and the blanket underneath.

Not cool.

Why was this so hard?

This whole weeks-long saga got me thinking about how I never really shop around for things.  Once I like something, I stick with it.  When I find something I really like, I buy it and move on.  Carlos is always on me to shop around, check out my options, don't commit right away.  My argument has always been that if I know what I like and it works for me, why should I spend time, energy, and inclination that I do not possess looking around, getting frustrated, and ultimately ending up disappointed?

But, hey, I wanted my baby dry, and for once, I was willing to try shopping around.

That's when I started thinking about something else:  only for my baby.  I would not shop around for new toilet paper, even though Carlos and Teno begged me to, even though our butts were rubbed raw by Trader Joe's brand.  I refuse to change soap brands, even though Carlos is right, we use way more of the Pure and Clear than we ever did of the chemical filled version.  I still haven't even bothered to shop around for a different cable/satellite provider, ditto for the cell phone, even though we would probably end up saving quite a bit of money.

I do not do these things because I am a famous prioritizer and those tasks/changes simply fall too far down on the list to even merit mention.

But for my baby, for her sweet little body bundled up warm and dry at night, I will trek out to store after store, week after week, in search of the perfect overnight diaper.

Being a mother has changed me on levels I am still recognizing on a daily basis, in roundabout ways.

Although I am definitely keeping a backup stock of the Huggies overnights from now on.

Just in case.

My Daughter Likes You

When I first thought about hiring a babysitter for Celaya because of a catastrophic falling out with my youngest sister, who was watching Celaya two days a week, I was immensely stressed.

How could I possibly find someone?

Well, a few Google searches later I found Care.com, the most amazing website that connects parents to sitters, whether it be for date night or a full time nanny.  Originally I thought I might put Celaya into a daycare/early preschool a few hours a day, two days a week, so she could start socializing with an organized, structured group of kids.  Come to find out: daycares and preschools require a minimum of 20 hours a week.

What?!

I needed help for 6 hours a week.  Therefore, my small potatoes were not attractive to the childcare centers, and as life generally works out, I found something even better.

This site connected me to dozens and dozens of sitters who could have possibly been a great match for my specific needs: two days a week, from 3 to 6.  A handful of potential sitters messaged me via the site within 48 hours.  

And after a few days, I found her.  The perfect sitter. 

Sounds like the title of a scary movie, huh?

That's what I thought.

I got her background check, I called references, I even Facebook stalked her.  You name it, I did it, all in the name of a mother of a toddler doing everything she can to ensure her daughter's safety.  I requested a resume, I have her social security number on file.

The list goes on.

But really, in the end, knowing my daughter and of course knowing myself, it just took that first day.

Celaya took her hand and led her into her toy room.  She sat down with her and played.  My new babysitter made my daughter comfortable enough to laugh, to talk, and (biggest moment of all) to walk away from me.  

This young girl with her crazy cool hip funky sense of style and inner city accent won my usually recalcitrant baby's trust in seconds. 

In the weeks that she's been sitting for us she has explored the neighborhood with Celaya, sung the ABCs with her, talked about colors and shapes, and crashed toy cars and trucks with her.  She is honestly a dream come true.  I came home last week after work to find three white printer pages with green handprints on them.  My sitter had spend the afternoon fingerpainting (handpainting, really) with Celaya after they saw a man painting his house outside.  She even included titles at the bottom of each page.  My favorite is "Celaya flower handprint 10/29/13."  She helped Celaya make a flower out of her own painted green baby handprints. 

Good help is hard to find, and my daughter genuinely likes her babysitter.

What more could I ask for?

Oh, yea, that she stick around for a long time.  

I wonder how she feels about watching two kids... 

A Blithesdale Romance

Every time I feel too tired to write I am reminded of this grand social experiment that Nathaniel Hawthorne and a handful of his fellow artists planned out and attempted to execute.  Likely the primary solid piece of work that actually came from this experiment was the fictional account, A Blithesdale Romance, that is based on that time.

The idea was that this commune of sorts would seek out and develop this plot of land, work the fields, the animals, clean house, and essentially perform all tasks necessary to keep a small, self sustainable country home running.  Then at night, invigorated from the pure, natural work done under God's sky, their creative juices would flow.

Ha.

By the end of the first week they realized that every night they were so exhausted all they wanted to do was crash and burn.  No one has the energy to push out serious artistic work at the end of a long, hard day's work.  (See Virginia Woolf and A Room of One's Own.)

For some reason beyond me (oh yea, Christmas is right around the corner), I have agreed to teach a full day's classes for the next five Sundays.  Here I am, Sunday night, too tired to write. 

So I stole from Nathatniel Hawthorne and Virginia Woolf to fill space and make my fingers move across the keys for a short time in acquiescence to the deal I made with myself to write every night.

Do you feel cheated?

My Sister

My mother got into town last night to stay for a week.

Yes, yes, I know.  The title of this post is "My Sister."

I mention my mother as a way of explaining why I missed a day of writing.  And also as a likely foreshadowing of a post on my mother to come soon.

But back to the title of this post.

There is a family story that has been repeated for as long as I can remember, so much so that it is almost a memory for me, even though it is clearly a shared memory because I was just shy of four years old at the time.

I am the oldest child in my family, and my first sister was born just about exactly three and a half years after me.  My parents were in the middle of a messy divorce, and Tammy and I were sitting at the base of the stairs in our small, two story townhouse.  The floor was hard tile, and my sister was not even six months old, just able to sit up on her own.  My mother says she was just out of reach when she looked over and saw my sister start to tip over and fall backward, her precious infant skull sure to make a resounding crack as it struck the ground.  But, as my mother watched, I reached out my nearly four year old hand and caught her baby head just before it hit, firmly bonding the older sister/younger sister dynamic that would last the rest of our lives.

Fast forward several years and I was desperate to be rid of her when my friends were around, but only too happy to play Little People or Barbies when we were alone.  We bundled up washcloths to make their beds in their little shoe box houses, tiny pieces of folded up toilet paper serving as their pillows.  Old dominoes made excellent tables while backgammon pieces were chairs.  We lived in an imaginary world unto ourselves for seven years until my next sister came along, and we took her, and then my brother three years after that, into our fold.

Tammy and I have shared laughter and tears.  I have fought with her as hard as I've fought with anyone, yet I've stood in front of hulking bullies that likely could have wiped me out in defense of my petite sibling, daring anyone to try to walk through me to get to her.

Fast forward again, to the present day.

We are as different as two sisters so close in age can be.  I live in the city; she lives in a small town.  I have a graduate degree and work in education; she has a high school diploma and runs an investment office.  I am, for the most part, a full time mom of one, working part time and renting an apartment, and she works full time, she's a homeowner, and she is the mother of two.

This last part is the part that has recently stood out to me the most.  For as long as I can remember I have said that I would be a stay at home mom, whereas she has never really made a statement either way.  One of the primary reasons I went so far in school, in fact, was so that I could earn a decent income while focusing most of my attention on my family.  And I frequently say that I am a supermom, superwoman, goddess, etc., etc.

I am very humble.

But my sister, my sister is a different kind of mom, a different kind of career woman, a different kind of wife, a different kind of woman.  And only since I have had my own child (her first came first) have I been able to truly appreciate the reality of one important point I have been missing in my estimation of my baby sister.  She is a goddess too.

If ever a woman could argue for being a full time employee and a great mom, it is Tammy.  She excels at work, dearly missed when she is out on vacation or maternity leave, and she thrives at home, fully immersed in her time with her babies when she has it.  Friends are hard pressed to force her out for a girls' night when she could instead be at home snuggling, cuddling, reading, cooking, or cleaning up after her family; to see her girlfriends, she organizes play dates or dinner parties that include her friends and their kids.  She allows her children to have later bedtimes so that she can have more quality time with them when she is home.  And why not?  They do not have school or daycare to get up and get out for the next day; she has worked out the perfect arrangement of a few days for the kids with grandma down the street, one week day at home with their dad, her husband, and one week day at home with her; since her youngest was born she has taken it upon herself to take an extra, unpaid day off of work to be with her darlings.  She is the best working mother I have ever met, and I am so immeasurably proud to call her sister.

Now, after thirty five years of life and thirty two years as a big sister, I am happy to admit that I see Tammy as a kind of mirror I stand in front of often, not to see if she looks like me, or if I need to lose weight (I do.  She's tiny.), but to see if, where it matters, I measure up.

My sister proves that different work and family decisions realistically can and do work for different people, without the children suffering, without being attacked by stress and/or guilt, without compromising values, that superwomen come in all shapes, sizes, and life choices.

Because, without saying a word, she makes me constantly re-evaluate my ideas, she reminds me to think before I speak, she shows me how to unconditionally love my husband, being her sister makes me want to be a better person.