I'm a big cliche

Firstly, I've been reflecting a lot on motherhood lately and started pounding out a huge manuscript on the topic. After some reflection, I have decided to break it up into different posts. Saturday I watched FoodInc, a really insightful documentary on issues in the food industry. After that, Netflix realized I like documentaries and it recommended more in spades. It seems NEtlfix knows me better than I thought. One recommendation was a documentary called "Babies". Here is the trailer: It follows four babies from different parts of the world (Namibia, Mongolia, Japan, and the USA). It was very charming and cute although I found myself tearing up/crying all through it. This is the theme in my life lately I see. Dads in the mall wearing baby Bjorns make me teary. I see a smiling pregnant woman in the grocery store and I feel physical pangs of jealousy. And yes, I am well aware that this makes me sound psychotic but I guess it is safe to say as I creep closer and closer to thirty my biological clock is pounding in my ears. I think I feel more anxious to find "the one" less from a desire to not be alone, but because my desire to have another baby before it's too late. The average 30 year old only has 12% of her eggs left. I am terrified that I won't ever meet someone who wants to have kids, or that by the time I do, I won't be able to anymore. And I'm not the only one apparently. There's even an acronym for people who feel this way: SADFABs (single and desperate for a baby). Which, isn't that the most depressing label ever? My pregnancy with Isaac was unexpected and a time of high stress, shame, and anxiety. It was not something I savored, it was something I detached myself from and endured. I was hit with a barrage of messages that I would have to sacrifice all my dreams and goals, that I would end up collecting welfare, that my kid would be maladjusted, When Isaac came, he became the light of my life. For all of the turmoil of the pregnancy, I can state with absolute certainty that Isaac is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Although a major theme of my blogging over the years has been my regret and guilt at how quickly his infancy passed in a the delurium of working full time, grad school, field experiences, student teaching, etc. Now all of a sudden he is this grown little boy with no traces of babyhood left. Selfishly, I want to do it all again when I can really delight in the experience of it. Also, I feel a lot of sorrow that Isaac will not have the experience of having a sibling close to him in age. My siblings are all two years apart and I am very close with each of them. Anyways, I certainly do not want to a rush a relationship forward toward love and marriage as a result of these overpowering maternal feelings. Seriously. But it is sort of hard when you imagine things in your life unfolding a certain way and all of a sudden you are almost 30 and nothing is the way you envisioned it. Stayed tuned for more thoughts on motherhood including recent conversations on dating a single mom, and the annoying tendency of childless people to compare having children to having a pet.

A few new things

I actually took this down yesterday. It's very cute (made it myself!) but I have had enough snow. Perhaps something Valentine's related will go up in it's place.

This cute pear bowl found when I was thrifting with my mom...

Also, I finally got some curtains for the living room (although every picture I tried to take of them was too dark or too light).

Sarah's Key

The story is set in Paris and has two interweaving stories revolving around the French roundup of Jews in World War II. One is told from the point of view of a 10 year old Jewish girl Sarah. She is awoken one morning by French police and taken with her parents. Thinking she will be back in a few hours, she locks her four year old brother in a closet. She is taken to an internment camp in a sports arena for several days and then to a work camp and the reader wonders if she will be able to escape and what will become of her brother. You can probably imagine the awful gut-wrenching places her story goes. The other story is set in the present and is narrated by a (two dimensional) American woman, Julia, who lives in Paris in an unhappy marriage. She is writing a newspaper article on the events detailed above and becomes (oddly) obsessed with Sarah's story. Unfortuneatly, about halfway through the novel, the author reveals the brother's fate and fades Sarah away. Julia is a less engaging narrator and the second half of the novel felt a little bit like a letdown. Although the plot at some points really makes no sense, it was a page turner. I had a snow day and knocked it out in 24 hours. I was definitely ignorant of the specific events that took place in France. A major theme of the novel is remembering horrific events, not simply sweeping away past history. It's a compelling story, even if the writing is a little weak.

random, shmandom

Okay, not to be a negative Nancy here, but I'm pretty much over the snowy weather. I'm also over my school district's unwillingness to ever give in a give us a snow day. When it's my time to go, I would rather it not be on my way in work on the sidestreets of Pottstown's North End thankyouverymuch. I like one or two big snowstorms, enough to use a few snow days, and then that's it. No more. For a girl who never picked up a snow shovel until last year, I have become a snow shoveling expert. I'm over it. There is a crapload of snow on the ground already and it's still coming down. Both of our districts have called for a delay, so I guess there is more shoveling in the near future. Booooooo. Here is the pile of work I took home with me from our 12:00 dismissal, ever the optimist that I would sit at home and continue forging on with lesson plans, IEPs and progress notes. Yeah right. It hasn't been touched and probably won't be unless we end up with a snowday tomorrow. We're also going slightly stir crazy. I am totally content to waste away a snowy weekend laid up in bed with a cup of lemon tea and a good book*. Isaac, not so much. There is only so many hours we can log on the wii or enduring the tedium that is Scrabble Jr. Even when we are not snowbound it is a struggle to come up with fun (and cheap/free) things to do in the winter. If anyone had any ideas I would love to hear them. *Incidently, I finally started Sarah's Key for book club. It's very riveting but might be too emotionally heavy to plow in a hurry. It might have to be one that I break up, like I did with Three Cups of Tea. I can't remember if I blogged about this yet or not, but I had a lovely time in Lancaster shopping till I dropped with my mom. I returned home and tried to make plans again with friends but again no one was around. I was determined not to sit in my house alone for the second night in a row on my weekend "off". I ended up texting WJM to see if he wanted to meet up somewhere. Turns out, he was out at his parent's house (like ten mins away) and said he would come over in about an hour and a half. That was the impetus I needed to get my house whipped into shape after turning a blind eye to the clutter and dishes for several days. I ran around like a crazy person and totally cleaned my house from top to bottom, even doing crazy stuff I knew he wouldn't even see like corralling the laundry in my closet and changing Isaac's sheets. It was lovely to wake up Sunday morning to a totally clean house. It was funny too because when I opened the door he was all, "Who shovelled this walk?!". I'm like "I shovel now!!" He came over for a little bit and then we went out to the Epicurean in Phoenixville for a bit, which was one of our old haunts. The conversation again was good. Equal parts reminiscing and catching up. I know I have written this before, but it is a very weird thing to hang out with him: a stranger who knows all about your past. It was actually nice though and better than staying home watching Netflix. Anyways, enough about that. This page fell out of Isaac's Kidwriting Journal at school so he brought it at home. I love, love, love, to read his writing. I just wish I could get him using more lowercase, especially for his name. "I saw a rainbow and there was a pot of gold and a leprachaun". Lastly, a friend recommended Ellie Goulding and I have been loving everything of hers. Here is her cover of one of my favorite songs. Hope things are well for all of you. Leave a comment if it's snowing where you are!

monday, monday

Hey, thanks to everyone who commented, e-mailed, talked to me in person or sent me private messages with your thoughts and advice on my previous post. I sincerely appreciate it. M is a good dad. He may not be very demonstrative but I know he loves Isaac very much and really wants Isaac to enjoy coming to his house for visits. I wish kids came with instruction manuals. It seems like there are so many potential ways to screw them up. Being a rather catastrophic thinker, I always tend to envision Isaac on a couch in a shrink's office in his early 20s recounting the endless mistakes I made during the formative years of his life. It's a hard pill to swallow that certain things that influence him (like the fact that he is shuttled between two households) are completely out of my control. In other news, I made it to yoga tonight for the first time in ages and it totally did a number on me. I was already so sore it hurt to even laugh a bit stiff from pilates yesterday. By the end of class my legs were shaking from trying to hold the poses that were so easy for me all summer. I should get back in the habit of going weekly again. It's so good for your body and your mind. It's so easy to find reasons not to go, but I when push away the excuses and just do it, I wonder why I don't make time for it more often. I wish I could learn that lesson for good. Taking it a step further, there are so many things in my life I dread and actively avoid and when I bite the bullet and just do them they are not nearly as awful/time consuming/scary as I built them up to be. I must be hardheaded because it never seems to sink in. My mom was here tonight and Isaac was reading books out loud to her. Not like "See Jane run" either. It's like all of a sudden he is a real reader and I couldn't be MORE proud. Anyways, I'm about out of things to say and I have my last Emily Griffin book calling to me from my nightstand. Good night all!

two worlds

This weekend I spent a good deal of time out in the Lancaster area with my mom. We had a nice day going from thrift store to thrift store looking for treasure amongst the trash. Partway through our day we stopped at Isaac's, a restaurant (not to be confused with Isaac, my offspring), to grab some lunch. As we were getting out of the car, I observed a man, a woman and a child in the parking lot. I don't think most people would have taken any notice, but I immediately recognized the weekend child swap. The two cars parked next to each other but with an empty spot between them for breathing room. The man was standing in this divide awkwardly hugging and conversing with his daughter, who was maybe seven or eight. The woman had the door open and was busy rummaging around the backseat of her car, arranging bags or reinstalling a carseat. I only saw them for a moment, I didn't have a chance to see how well the girl was able to jump from daddy's world to mommy's world. I wish I did. I want some reassurance that it will somehow get easier. I am very interested to hear of any other takes on this. Isaac has at least four of these transitions a month (he spends every other weekend with his dad) for almost the past four years. When we lived closer together, he would spend time every weekend with his dad, and for a brief period, even some weekday evenings. There have been some times when it was easy, especially when Isaac was a toddler/preschooler. A seamless transition from me to him with him rushing off into his dad's apartment to find his toys, tossing a "Bye mom!" over his shoulder as he ran off. But usually it is not. More along the lines his dad having to hold him back as I left and me hearing his cries even out to the parking lot as I got in my car to pull away. Isaac's dad M. is certainly not a "Disneyland Daddy". Sometimes I think that is almost part of the problem. I think Isaac enjoys the time he spends with his father, but I don't think he especially looks forward to it. Generally I start to remind Isaac on the Monday before that this will be his weekend with Daddy. Usually at some point during the week, he will express that he doesn't want to go to his dad's, he wants to stay here with me. I try to reassure him, but it's hard. The Thursday before he goes, we pack his suitcase and I try to get him to think of things he might want to take along to do, or to show his dad. Generally, he isn't too interested. Friday morning I remind him again that I will pick him from school and we will be going to Daddy's house. When I pick him from school and suddenly he is in that "in between" transitional space and he doesn't do well there. He is almost always upset because I pick him up much earlier than other days and his play time at the Y is disrupted. He will usually start to cry and tantrum as we get in the car, often refusing to put on his seatbelt and screaming that he doesn't want to go or that he hates me. It gets worse when we approach the four way stop by his school and I go straight and not left towards home and he knows it's for real. The good news is that it takes about 25 minutes to get to the Walgreen's near M's work, which is the halfway point and the site of our "exchange". By the time we get there, Isaac is resigned to his fate and will usually get into his dad's car calmly, if not somewhat woodenly. I always remind him before he gets out of my car to say hello to his dad, but most often he won't. He just silently hops into his carseat and lets me kiss him goodbye. When we meet up again in the same spot on Sunday he doesn't generally say good-bye to his dad without prompting and usually he starts on me before we even gets into my car. Take today for example. He gets out of his dad's car and tells me he is thirsty and wants to go into Walgreen's to buy a drink. This is a routine. I will often let him go in and choose a snack or candy or special treat from the store before we head home. In my head, I am helping him with the transition and probably, on some level, trying to prove that I am the fun parent who says "yes" while daddy is the parent who has undoubtedly told him "no" as they sat there waiting for me. (Side note-- his dad is almost always at our swap spot at least fifteen minutes early for no apparent reason. This often results in Isaac perceiving that I am late to get him, when in reality I am right on time. No amount of explaining will convince him otherwise. Drives me crazy). Anyways, today I said no. My budget is tight, and I am trying to cut silly little shopping trips like this out. Isaac became enraged and kicks my car door twice and refuses to get in the car. We are in a stand off, which his dad glances at passively as he pulls away. Finally Isaac gets in the car but refuses to put on his seatbelt, so I have to do it for him. The whole way home, he alternates between screaming/crying ("I'm thirsty!!!"), curling up in a ball with his head on his knees and giving me the silent treatment (such as when I finally pull into a McDonald's drive through to get him a drink and then he refuses to answer me when I ask him what he wants), and giving me snotty, venom filled replies that I would expect to be hurled at me from the lips of a greasy haired teenager, not my precious almost six year old. This goes on for the next 20 minutes or so. He is angry that I won't stop at Target for a toy. Then he has to the bathroom. When I pull over at a Wegman's to let him go, he angrily tells me that this is not a grocery store. He also is furious that I am calling him Isaac, which he now declares is "not his name". I try to joke with him to break him out of his mood but he won't engage. (I know better than to inquire about how his weekend was, or ask what he did at daddy's. He never wants to discuss it in the car or in response to my questioning. Sometimes, he will share with me later on his own terms). When we get into the grocery store, not the place we usually shop and which he has never set foot in, he insists he knows where the bathrooms are and refuses to follow me. On the way to the bathroom he looks up at me disdainfully and says "I have an idea mom. Can you do me a favor and just not talk to me for a while? Yeahthanks." I gritted my teeth, resisting the impulse to slap him, and said "No problem." He then declared he was going into the men's room so that he wouldn't have to be with me anymore. The Wegman's we stopped at is huge. It has a big restaurant inside it, a kids area with a TV and an enormous shopping area with little stands and people offering samples. The ceiling has an enormous train track with a locomotive circling the dairy section. When he emerged from the bathroom and back into the hustle and bustle of the store, he softened somewhat, reached up and took my hand, and said "Mommy, could we stay here for a little bit? Could we shop or get something to eat?" It was like someone had turned a switch and he was suddenly back to my charming little boy again. We wandered around for a bit, people watching, laughing and joking. When we got back into the car, unprompted he shared with me that he had wet himself that morning at his dad's, because it was dark when he woke up and he was too afraid to go by himself down the dark hallway to the bathroom. We talked about how next time I would send along a flashlight to keep there, so that wouldn't happen again. His dad never shares much about their weekends together. He is a man of few words. I don't know if he gets any backlash during the transit between parental worlds, or if I bare the brunt of naughty behavior. I know it must be terribly overwhelming for a five year old to transition back and forth and all of this acting out is his way dealing with his feelings. But there has to be an easier way?? In an ideal world we would meet at a park and Isaac would play for a while before one of us said good-bye, seamlessly transitioning Isaac from one parent to the other. Or his dad would pick him up from school, eliminating me from the entire equation. But that's just not possible. The Walgreen's car switch is pretty much how it needs to be. Anyone out there have any tips or tricks? Brilliant insights? I want to be the caring mom helping transition, but I also don't want to be pushover, throwing treats at him and tolerating his ridiculous behavior.

ugh

Did this this morning. The girl is annoying perky but for only ten minutes it was a heck of a workout.