June 8, 2016
I ran across Blue Bloods on Netflix and flipped it on to be background noise. I was surprised to find myself enjoying the show. It’s wish fulfillment. Isn’t most tv?
I’m neither anti-establishment nor pro-police. I’ve multitudes of family and friends in both law enforcement and the military and, as a result, have had the ideals of what police and military are meant to be instilled in me early on. Not all of our police departments conduct themselves with the honor and integrity we should be able to expect from them. They’re in positions of authority, and with that, I’m all about Uncle Ben-isms here: With great power comes great responsibility. I wish more people understood that.
The main characters, the Reagan family, seem to be everything I’m not: white, Irish, Catholic, family with years of service in the police force. I disagree, and sometimes vehemently, with some of the storylines that they run and stereotypes they perpetuate. And it’s not escaped my notice that there aren’t very many Asian faces, if any, in the show. I’ve noticed this more and more. It’s not like there aren’t Asian actors but you wouldn’t know it from watching this drama, or most other shows, on mainstream tv.
It drew me in because there’s a kernel of what I know police can be: balancing fair and tough, trying to do the right thing by the citizens, trying to serve and protect, without seeing the citizens as the enemy. This is what my family LEOs try to be and what I wish we could have confidence in. The Reagans are flawed but fundamentally good people trying to do the right thing for the good of the people, wrestling with thorny ethical problems, held to a mostly higher standard because the patriarchs were both officers who served as police commissioners. And they make mistakes. But they learn from them.
It’s wish fulfillment another way, too. Would you believe there are moments I fight off envy of that family? Envy that the family fights for one another, looks out for one another? Envy for made up characters in a tv show. Can you beat that?
Professionalism isn’t just for sometimes
Jamie Reagan: “On the side of the patrol car that I drive, it says ‘courtesy, professionalism and respect, not judge, jury, and executioner!'”
The public should be able to trust that you practice the ideals you say you stand for. Your customers, your clients, and your employers should also be able to trust that you will make the best decisions you can whether or not someone is watch. Whether or not it’s convenient.
Danny Reagan: “Your money doesn’t make me stupid.”
Having money is, and provides, a certain kind of privilege. It shouldn’t buy you more rights, and having less money shouldn’t mean you have fewer rights. And money shouldn’t dictate how you treat a person, or your job. Or here in California, it shouldn’t buy you the right to squander precious and scarce natural resources because you’re a fat cat jerk who thinks that your money buys you the rights to waste water on keeping a lawn green while there isn’t enough for people to drink or bathe in.
Frank Reagan: “If what she said doesn’t count because it was a she who said it, then it doesn’t belong in police work.”
Sexism has no place in your professional conduct.
Parenting: it’s a lifetime of terror
Jamie, whinging about his dad being overprotective: “You’d think it was him they put a hit on.”
Oh kid, you have no idea how much a caring parent would 1000x rather they were harmed in their child’s place if it would save their child pain.
Financial responsibility starts early
Frank Reagan: You should learn to cook. There are a few years between eating out on your parents’ dime and when you can afford it yourself.
Kids should understand early on that what they’re enjoying now, as a result of their parents’ hard work, is something they have to work up to. You don’t typically graduate from high school or college and have the ability to buy a 3 bed, 2 bath, with a yard and garage, and eat out every week.
Have discretion, always
Renzulli rips into Jamie: You were undercover and you didn’t tell me?
Isn’t the point of undercover is that you don’t tell anyone? I get that there’s an extra bond of loyalty between partners but in general, I think it makes sense to maintain your cover.
PC Frank Reagan to DCPI Garrett: Can you keep a secret?
DCPI Garrett: Yeah.
PC Frank Reagan: Good, so can I.
:: Are there tv shows that you were surprised to enjoy? Does the homogeneity of TV-land match your real life experience? Are there any shows on Netflix or Amazon Prime that would make me feel better about the world? Or that are worth trying?
May 11, 2016
It feels like we’ve been tossing in the tempest, caught up in a life twister, for weeks. Nay, months!
Normally I run at 70% efficiency, sickness took me down to 40%. I regained some health points just in time for a long travel weekend (write up to come when my head is back on my shoulders), and oh, by the by, finish ALL THESE THINGS NOW.
It’s tax time so I have to review our return before signing off on the ma-hoo-sive payments to state and federal.
SoFi finally got off their collective posteriors and sent our application through underwriting after requesting additional documents in a dozen back and forth emails. (Hint, professionals ask for everything they need at one time. Clearly and in complete sentences, not half sentences and in ones and twos.) ((Second hint: professionals get the name of their own company right and don’t call it Sofee.))
Naturally, right before we left town, I had to URGENTLY sign and initial 78 pages of initial agreements. Guys, I started this process at the beginning of January and it’s been radio silence for 14 weeks. Now it’s life or death urgent. Of course!
Then I have to pay for an appraisal: $575. That same day I get an email: schedule it IMMEDIATELY. Bear in mind, we’re on the road. Then SoFi comes back asking for MORE documents and nags me for them when they’re not uploaded in 48 hours. Man, look.
While that’s going on, our estate planning paperwork came back almost completed and needs to be reviewed so I can schedule a signing. I refused to drag myself to a lawyer’s office when I was sick, there’s something about law firms that make me feel like I have to look like I’ve got my shit together. So, note to self, find time for reading another stack of serious business.
Meanwhile, PiC has been laboring mightily searching for cars. The last of the three prospectives were so close to the right fit, enough so that we thought he’d have to buy the dang thing right before we flew to Washington, but they were all half a state away. It was nearly a relief that the prepurchase inspection revealed about $3500 of repairs, ignoring the non-critical ones, so we couldn’t agree on price.
He and I had agreed that if it fell through, though there is a cost to our time, the cost of paying for a vehicle that only sort of fit our specifications was both too much frustration and money. We’d rather wait and get the closest possible fit.
With all these things weighing on our minds, and traveling to a fly-away Con with LB for the first time, the watchword has been: frantic.
Friday morning, of course the energy checks I’d been writing were cashed and my body could not pay up. So, tucked back into bed after a wearing morning ended with a sleeping LB nearby, I sent him off for a run while I answered some household and money emails. Rent’s in. Baggage problems. Taxes. Etcetera.
He sat down next to me, unreadable expression on his face.
I nudged. Go work out.
He sat.
Sighed.
Said, I hope you know you can ask me to take on some things. Even if it take me longer.
Confused.
He said, you make a lot of this (our lifestyle) possible.
It’s true, what he says. I do massive amounts of work managing our income, savings, spending decisions so we can have what we need and some of what we want. Planning for a possibly long future, planning for our family in case of the worst possible circumstances. None of it’s exactly FUN, in the sense of confetti bombs and popping balloons, but it’s a comfort to know that working my butt off isn’t squandered on someone who just wants what he wants and devil take the hindmost.
I guess what I’m saying is that a metric ton of weight on your shoulders doesn’t feel quite so heavy when you have a partner doing his share and reminding you that you’re not alone in your share either. And it makes an enormous difference that he wouldn’t for a split-second consider undermining the work I do for our family because he wants something that’s greater than our budget can currently bear, in the same way he wouldn’t take it for granted that he’s financially set because I manage our books.
It’s nice to have a quiet hour in the eye of the storm before it takes us up again.
:: Do you feel like your contributions are appreciated? Are your affairs are in order or on track to be in order?
May 9, 2016
Every so often, I think about the fairness of our relationship.
It’s in the context of my chronic health crap and how I hate that PiC has to pick up my slack. It’s also in the context of considering whether the overall load is properly balanced.
Socially, the weight is typically heavier on the women’s side for what we call “emotional labor”. That’d be the scutwork of making life smooth, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
As head of my nuclear family’s household, the division of labor was the breadwinner (me) did all the money stuff, and the non-breadwinners (not me) did all the housework. This wasn’t a mutual agreement, it’s what the non-breadwinners were comfortable with. But the part I wasn’t comfortable with was picking up after everybody when they made mistakes and couldn’t figure their way out.
In our own small family, it’s different. Our roles and contributions change depending on the day and the need. The often unnoticed work of keeping things clean, making adjustments to schedules to accommodate other needs, making the schedules themselves, and all that, belongs to both of us because we make it known. We make it noticed.
As the family financier, much of my contributions are nearly invisible in our day to day lives, but that doesn’t mean it’s without value. It’s of tremendous value and we’ll both benefit from it in years to come. This valuation doesn’t just magically happen. PiC doesn’t just read my mind and go “Ah! You’ve scored a coup for us in ten years with that move!” That would be weird. But I tell him. I say out loud (this is the key part, saying it OUT LOUD) that I’ve been working on our estate plan, or the questions with the lawyer, or the mortgage refinance. He gets mini updates and that helps him understand that I’m not just staring at hilarious Hulk gifs online all day. I could.
It’s easy to declare that I am not automatically the family secretary, maid, or nurse but these chores and labors are not static assignments, and so it’s important to pay attention to the shifts lest either partner find themselves burdened with the lion’s share of the work permanently. Believe you me, that breeds a world of resentment, snarling, and imagined payback. That’s not one of our best looks.
Scheduling
We share a calendar that we’re both responsible for adding things to. That’s not in the “if the world were perfect he would add them” kind of way. If PiC tells me something is happening on such and such a date, then I can reasonably expect that 75% of the time he’ll also have added it to the calendar. He can reasonably expect the same success rate from me.
I avoid being our social secretary by not being social and we observe a loose “to each their own” rule. If they’re his friends, he takes care of “just because” or birthday gifts. My friends, my responsibility. Same with family. He doesn’t worry about how we’ll do Father’s Day and I don’t worry about how we’ll do Mother’s Day. If I say we’re doing a thing, then he’s guided by my preference. If he wants to do a thing, then I work with that. His siblings are not my job, like my sibling is not his. This isn’t to say that we see each others’ families as chores, we simply don’t make them the other person’s emotional work. I don’t take it upon myself to worry over this person’s birthday, or that person’s anniversaries because most birthdays and anniversaries are not a thing I care deeply about. He cares, so he pays attention. He’ll remind me to send a text to whomever is having a birthday, whether it’s my side or his, because he gets alerts and I don’t.
In over ten years of our relationship, he has planned for every single special occasion celebration. Every single one. Even if it’s not something that I personally find important to do, I do cherish his effort and his love in doing so.
Nursemaiding & Parenting
He does 99% of daycare duty which means he has to come home when LB is sick. We take turns with being point parent. If his deadlines are pressing, he goes back to work. If mine are, he takes hir while I work.
He takes every morning shift, matter how painfully early, no matter how tired he is. I don’t sleep well so middle of the night wake ups are mine. He still insists on coming to check on hir with me if it takes more than a few minutes. Then Seamus comes to check on everyone! Baths and bedtime used to be his job when I was home alone all day with hir. Now we switch off so he can hit the gym some nights.
If we were to keep tabs, it’s really close to 50%.
Cleaning House
He likes a house to be clean. I like a house to be tidy. Therefore, I pick up those loose things that inevitably clutter and sweep up with my adorable new broom and dustpan. He wipes down the stove, scrubs the toilets, beats the rugs. We split things like vacuuming and dishes.
Highlight: PiC’s always cleaned the toilets in all the years we’ve lived together. This isn’t my favorite thing about him but it’s on the list.
Money, money, money!
I happily (ferociously possessively) take care of our bills, investing, real estate, savings, and taxes. He does a few bills and Craigslist sales and gets periodic update on the Financial State of the Union. I also do most of the household needs ordering from my Amazon account because I work the rewards systems for gift cards.
We each bring home a good income. I still feel pressure to keep making more because it’s my family that’s costing us a significant amount of money every year. He doesn’t look at it that way but I do. So, even though we have nearly equal incomes, I’m always 40% more concerned about stretching every dollar and saving every ten. He’s gotten pretty good at saving too.
Guest Haus
We host together. If we have friends or family staying over, we menu plan together. He’ll do the grocery shopping, and I’ll do the cooking. He’ll clean the guest room while I launder the bedding.
Everybody’s gotta eat
I am Chef, I do most of the “big” cooking: whole meals, more complicated entrees from scratch, new recipes. He is Sous Chef and reigns over all the reheating of leftovers and filling in the blanks with a vegetable or making sandwiches and soup.
He makes the grocery lists and we shop together unless I’m down for the count. It’s our family thing.
Maybe the funny thing about this is Dad doesn’t know (see above, about old household) so he cracks jokes about how we must starve if we rely on my cooking and PiC gets really confused.
On the road again
Travel planning is my domain because my heart would bleed to find that we overpaid or failed to maximize points or miles. He does some of the research and weighs in on details.
Four-leggers
All pet health stuff is my area of expertise so I take point on decision making and manage all the medication ordering. PiC takes Seamus to the vet as often as I do, and we split walking duties.
:: How do you create balance in your lives and recalibrate? When do you need to recalibrate?
*Part of Financially Savvy Saturdays on brokeGIRLrich, andDisease Called Debt
May 4, 2016
What’s in a name?
My friend hung up the phone and turned to me, “Never change your name if you get married. It’s such a pain to change back when something goes horribly wrong and you have to divorce him.”
I just nodded.
She’d finalized a painful divorce. While enrolled in a 4-year professional program, supporting his worthless butt, she came home to find her husband had been cheating on her the whole time. He didn’t even have the grace to be ashamed of his betrayal.
In that position, I surely wouldn’t want to carry the taint of his name.
When it came time for us to consider the question, I knew that particular issue wouldn’t ever be a problem with PiC. I know you always think you know, but he’s an incredibly stand-up person, husband, father. It’s simply not in him to cheat. Leaving that aside, there are always reasons, and good reasons, for people to dissolve their marriages that aren’t rooted in betrayal.
And likewise, there are good reasons for choosing not to take your spouse’s name when you’re getting married, many of which ring true for me.
“The HisLastName Family” would be easier for people to remember, and most people assume that’s the case, but it wasn’t comfortable or the right fit for me.
First and foremost, I simply wasn’t feeling the love. My first name + his last name didn’t bring the sparrows out of the trees, twittering and singing. I was never that girl who scrawled her name, testing it out with the future prospective husband’s, and that wasn’t just because I didn’t feel that for anyone in those days but also because love didn’t mean a name change to me. Love is many things but it’s not a different name.
I asked PiC if he had an opinion, out of respect for his thoughts but they were the same as mine: it’s my name, it’s my choice. I left it open-ended, assuming that I might choose to change it at a later date but years later, it still feels like the right choice.
This was the name I was born with.
I got married, I wasn’t reborn. I don’t feel reborn in any way. Your mileage may vary, of course this is just about me, and speaking about me? I feel older, I feel like we’re a team, like we have evolved, and grown together. But this marriage didn’t just spring fully formed from Athena’s forehead. We haven’t experienced a rebirth as humans. We knowingly chose to enter into a legal and cultural covenant to fight this life’s fights side by side.
My husband doesn’t need to bestow upon me a new name because we’ve entered into this union any more than I need to bestow a new name on him.
But, (new) faaaaamily??
I know that some people feel that they need to share the same names as a family to be a family. That’s valid, for them.
For me, changing my name would no more make me part of a new family than not changing it would exclude me. Changing my name would unmoor me from who I know I myself as but it would not be in exchange for making me a part of a new family. Those were, and are, completely separate issues: my identity is one, my sense of belonging is another.
I’ll admit the issue gave me pause when we discussed having children. We were aware that there is a way things are usually done, and that people are likely to be confused if our offspring don’t share a name with both of us. But I have faith, people! I have faith that it’s possible for people to wrap their heads around the idea that I have my name, and PiC has his name, and those names don’t make or unmake our relationship to our child.
More seriously, there’s a nice solution that friends have had to the kids and naming question: they take both names. I don’t care at all for the idea that my last name and the last name of any children wouldn’t match and therefore we don’t “appear” to be family – I did so much work so darn it, my kid is going to have my name too. Giving our kid both our names in some way works for me.
But your name is just your dad’s name so Patriarchy still wins!
Sure, it was my dad’s name. But my first name was from my mom. It’s not like I was born with a first name attached and whichever parent appended their name determined whether patriarchy or matriarchy wins. They both gave me a first, middle, last, and non-English name. What I did after that made it mine.
I won awards in my name.
I made mistakes in my name.
I learned life and academic lessons, failed, and tried again, in my name.
I graduated from school in my name.
I established my career and a professional reputation in my name.
(I’ll take credit for my part in keeping our marriage healthy, in my name, but I don’t think the act of getting married is in itself an accomplishment.)
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander
I’m a strong believer in fairness and equality. They don’t always mean the same thing but in this case they do: when getting married these days, there’s no good reason to my mind that only the woman has to consider whether or not to change her name. Aren’t you both getting married? Aren’t you both equally entitled to like your name enough for it to be the family name?
My favorite solution yet was the couple who hyphenated but took each other’s names as the first last name. So she was Mrs. His-Hers and he was Mr. Hers-His. That truly felt like something I might have, were I inclined to hyphenation, felt comfortable doing together. That felt like a family thing to me.
Since PiC likes his name as much as I like mine, neither of us chose to change our names and that felt perfectly fine.
Bonus: I didn’t know this at the time, having never called most of my family members by their last names, but it’s rare for any women in my family to change their names on marrying. It’s apparently the cultural norm not to and it’s one cultural tradition I’m ok with carrying on.
:: What’s the norm in your culture? Would you have / did you consider changing your name or not (whether you’re male or female)? I can barely remember my first name on bad days, would you be concerned you wouldn’t know what name to respond to if you did change it?
April 27, 2016
Free fun: the patented homebody edition
Lest you ever have the mistaken notion that PiC and I are a happenin’ couple…or whatever means “cool” these days, let me regale you with our Saturday night.
Some people get dolled up and go to Disneyland’s Club 33 for a drink and whatever else you do there.
Us?
Well, our dinner was a little late. While I tried to finish booking travel arrangements before running off to cook, LB had snuggled up next to me to crunch on these puffed cereal squares PiC had found at Trader Joe’s. They’re good, we all eat them.
Ze waved hir cup at me and tried to help me type so, of course, “No, LB, do not break Mama’s computer with your grubby fingers. Sit down.”
Ze sat.
Ze crunched.
Ze offered me a square.
“No thanks, honey, that’s for you.”
Ze took a bite, then offered it again. This time demonstrating what ze wanted with an open mouth, saying “ahhhh”. Nothing like your kid turning your tricks against you.
“Oh, no, DEFINITELY no thanks, that’s really for you. Here, see? I’ll eat this one.” I popped an unlicked square in my mouth and crunch-crunch-crunched. Ze smiled, satisfied, I thought.
Nope. Fool.
Ze took another square and offered it again. “No, thammmf!” Ze jammed it in my mouth. My hands were protecting the computer and ze knew ze had me. To really make sure of it, ze pushed half hir hand into my mouth so the cereal was not coming back out.
Laughing, I turned to PiC who wasn’t helping even a little bit, and gestured wildly. He took a picture. THANKS.
I turned back and *jam* another cereal square. And another! Ze grinned madly, this was fun!
But I still have my standards, if there was drool on it, I wasn’t eating it.
After the dozenth very aggressively offered cereal but was uncompromisingly shoved into my mouth, ze sat back on hir heels and started eating again. A clear dismissal, or at least an easing of hostile sharing.
Soup’s on!
Dinner was the usual. Rice and fish spoon-catapulted all down my front. Milk dribbling down hir dimply chin, both parents gingerly treading around and through the rice moat surrounding hir high chair. You know, the usual.
Bath and bedtime are always good. They’re the easiest part of the day and no matter how hard the day was, you’re guaranteed lots of grins and laughs. That makes the wind down of the night so much easier.
Closin’ down the bar
I joggle at PiC’s elbow as he does the dishes, impatiently. Just when it’s my turn to rinse, I disappear, having just remembered it was time for Seamus’s medication. My timing is impeccable. But the magic hour rolls around when we’re both parked at the table and it’s time. FOR MONOPOLY!
Not the board game, though it’ll come as no surprise to anyone who’s read a word of this blog, I loved the board game and finagled a game as often as possible. No, we’re “playing” the supermarket board game where you get game tickets for certain purchases from Safeway. Our regular purchases always earn a few, and we stick the individual pieces to the paper board game piece in the faint hope of filling all four or five parts of a property to win anything from a $5 grocery gift card to a $500K vacation home or $1 MILLION DOLLARS.
PiC reads off the numbers in his loud Bingo voice, and I cheer or boo the pieces, gluing pieces to the sheet when we hit on an empty space. To date, we’ve won 3 instant win vouchers for 2 more game pieces and we’re one or two pieces away from winning big or small on a variety of stops on the board.
It’s all VERY exciting.
Right, I’m not fooling anyone, I know the rest of the world actually engages in real fun but look, this is our kinda fun, alright?
Besides, what if we did win?
We’re close on the $5 grocery card, $15 grocery card, $2,500 Big Joe Grill and groceries (what say I skip the grill and get that all in groceries?), $200 cash, $1,000 grocery card and $1,000 family vacation.
PiC and I have an agreement that if we did win, we tell no one. Except if he gets the $5 gift card, he’s singing it from the mountaintops. I’m not sure if this blog is exempt from the “tell no one” agreement yet, but I think it should be.
:: PiC says the real value is our goofball selves having Family Time, I say the real win is the million dollars. What would you want to win if you had to pick one and it wasn’t the $1M or $500K home (because I seriously doubt anyone will win those)? Do you think anyone’s really going to win anything? Have you ever? We’re going to need a new free and easy pastime when the game is up in May, suggestions?
April 13, 2016
Everyone is down. I repeat, everyone is down.
PiC’s taken to bed with a high fever, LB’s the one who brought home the fever and is still sick, and I’m pretty broken as well. Seamus is the only one still going on all pistons. You’d think he’d have more concern for his survival in this situation. Instead, he steadfastly sticks by us with an air of unconcern.
LB has been waking around 3 am, right at 6 hours past Motrin o’clock, crying pitifully. Ze’s congested, and burning up again. I stumble around prepping the syringe of Motrin and a small bottle of milk. Ze will be thirsty and hungry to boot. PiC’s woken up and came to refresh the humidifier, cuddling LB so I can administer the dose and changes hir diaper. My heart breaks for hir small hiccups and cries as ze struggles to find a way to be comfortable. I send PiC to bed, he’s far worse off than I am, and send Seamus off as well. He’d woken up sometime after I did and came to join us as we tended to LB, sprawling bedside.
Seamus ambles off, amiably and LB dozes fitfully on my chest. Ze hasn’t slept on me since ze was four or five months and as terrible as we both feel, this brings back fond memories. Except now ze is three times larger and heavier. I roll hir off me gently and tuck her into my side so I can breathe too.
We manage four hours of restless but blissful dozing, and we’re up again. PiC stumbles in as I change hir diaper. He of the functional immune system feels better after a few hours of unbroken sleep so it’s my turn. He takes over while I catch a couple hours, then we switch again. He has to go to work for a few hours, so he leaves for the office while I clear up and get caught up on the morning’s work. The tidying can wait, I only have so much energy and my brain needs it all for work.
LB is so exhausted that the nap stretches an unheard of 4 hours, and I can relax a little bit. I’ve gotten so much done, despite a raw throat, roaring headache, and multitude of aches, that it feels like we can survive this day.
PiC gets home around 1 pm and makes us all lunch. Reluctantly, thinking ze will take up the rest of the day, I log off and we have a quiet meal together.
He’s in charge of hir now so I can carry on working and resting but he’s lucked out. Ze is still so worn out barely two hours after waking, we hear a pitifully tired “put me to bed” cry. We comply and he collapses for a short rest.
We’re not usually this sick and this is definitely as sick as LB has ever been. What a rough induction into cold and flu season? Whoever thought “what better way to challenge our Team Parent skills than to kick out our legs and push us down a hill”, if I find you, there’s a punch coming to your nose.
What did I learn?
Many of these days are about survival, and that’s ok. We don’t have any help other than paid daycare a few days a week so we are careful to spell each other and are maybe more considerate of each other’s needs than if we had more help.
We don’t have to navigate family and complicated related feelings because we’re isolated and don’t have family help. It’s occurred to us that this has actually worked out for us. We’re stronger as a team because we’ve learned to work through our strengths, weaknesses, assumptions, and all of the complications that naturally come up through a long relationship. As much as we miss our parents, far or gone, this hasn’t been without its benefits even on those really hard days.
:: Are you in close proximity to family? Is that a good or bad thing?
April 6, 2016
Around 6 am, the snorfling starts. This kid is nothing like me – goes from asleep to wide awake in less than three winks – so any waking movement is The Real Deal.
PiC’s already up and initiating the daddy+baby morning routine so I pass out again, dozing until 7 am.
I brush my teeth and check email for any emergencies. Nothing this morning so I take over feeding LB, give Seamus his morning meds, and strap LB into the stroller and head out for a walk. PiC usually takes them for a walk before I get up but since I’m up early, he might as well get a head start on getting ready.
We come back 30 minutes later for blocks and song: ze stands at the block box handing me one at a time, bobbing hir head to my song. Ze hands me one block, I hand hir another. Rinse and repeat.
Ze spies PiC around the corner, not paying attention to either of us. Opportunity! Ze makes a crawl-dash for the dog’s water bowl. Seamus’s water bowl beckons to hir irresistably. We head off some dashes, the others result in flying hir to the sink after ze has a good splash in his bowl. Seamus is NOT amused.
Hands washed, it’s book time. I start to read Tremendous Tractors at the book bench, ze leans up against the bench to listen for half a page, then starts sorting. This book is for … you. This book is for … you. This book is for … Seamus. This book is for … you. Halfway through reading, Busy Hands has handed me the entire stack of books. Rinse and repeat for the second half of the reading.
Next up: musical toys. Some toys are for sharing, like the blocks and Legos, some are for pulling apart and flinging about. This is one of the latter. Ze prefers to fly solo as ze wrestles the rings off the stand and discards them over a shoulder. Naturally I very helpfully undo all hir work as ze finishes, placing the parts all back on the stand again. This is worth about 20 minutes.
One of hir other musical toys goes off. Over my shoulder, I see Seamus grin and tuck his paw under his chin. THANKS.
A frown, an eye-rub. Then a bigger frown and a double eye-rub. Ze won’t admit it but the fatigue is upon hir and it’s time to warm a bottle. We’ll be weaning off the bottle soon, so we’re in a transition period of bottles before naps and sippy cups after. We bounce on the yoga ball on the way to the sofa. Bottle clutched in chubby hands, tiny feet propped up on my lap, we relax for a few minutes. And I check email again. All’s quiet, just routine stuff, so I enjoy a moment of almost-cuddling with my squirmy worm.
Bottle polished off, ze hands it to me and contemplates hir full belly with a half smile. Time was, ze would finish bottle and throw it like a football. I like this new development. LB settles down after 9 am and Seamus gets breakfast. Now, it’s my time: get a glass of water, find my glasses, my computer, and dive into work. But first: sweatpants!
I get an hour and a quarter on Nap 1. I mowed down all urgent and important emails, jot to-do list for the rest of my work day. Caught up on some projects and even unexpectedly finish a call early so I process an Amazon return and package up the box to drop off at the post office. Prep the first load of laundry, it’ll be ready for drying sometime when ze gets up.
A wail. That’s never good. Ze normally wakes up and plays for a while, then yells for rescue, but ze has been running a fever the past few days and evidently ze’s miserable again. I hold hir for a while. Ze doesn’t want food or water, doesn’t want to be put down but doesn’t want to be held like that either. We sit on the ground with some toys, sadly looking at one, then another, until my silly song and toy rattling coaxes a smile to the surface. Soon enough it’s submerged under tears, again. This calls for a change in scenery, and we also need milk.
Seamus is appalled. We’re obviously going outside, but we’re not taking him with us??? It’s literally unbelievable. He walks out the front door to wait outside because surely we don’t mean to go anywhere without him. Except, we must. We’re going to walk to the grocery store and he’s not allowed inside. I’m certainly not tying him up outside, someone might steal him. And I can’t tie him outside with LB. I think that’s frowned on.
Heavy with guilt, I lock up, leaving him to contemplate the traitorous nature of Humans.
The outing helps hir mood. I pick up groceries, then we struggle our way back home. It’s a long bracing walk but I seem to have caught hir bug. Everything is heavier, more exhausting. It takes us 45 minutes, round trip.
I get a text from PiC as we arrive home and start coaxing some food into the somewhat refreshed baby. Between bites, we realize that he’d failed to plan his day all the way through and now needs to be picked up. He’s tried asking a few friends if they were in the area but I thought it unlikely so I dose hir up with ibuprofen (doc’s orders!), strap hir into the harness, and we plod back outside to the car.
Mom and baby to the rescue: we pick up PiC from the nearby transit stop, and we make a quick stop at the pharmacy for my meds before getting back home.Usually I have them mailed but the pharmacy screwed up this refill.
Snack time part two commences with a bun and a pinch bowl of raisins. These are perfect for letting hir feed hirself: small enough to fit infant-appropriate serving size snacks, the bowls are sturdy and flexible, ze thinks they’re toys as much as food vehicles. Ze upends the bowl, wears it as a hat, chews on the side thoughtfully.
It’s been 3 hours since Nap 1, so I prep another bottle for hir and peel my shoes out of hir hands again. Someday, this child will stop trying to lick my shoes. Until then …. I cuddle hir on my lap with a bottle. Usually ze lays on the ground snuggled into hir Boppy but today I’m too tired to pick hir up again so lap it is. NOPE, ze struggles back up. I push hir back and offer the bottle again. Well, ok. Ze drinks, pops the bottle out to show me hir progress halfway through, squirts hirself in the face with milk, and finally finishes.
Off to bed. There are some protests. There may be some bar rattling. But once I’ve initiated naptime procedures, I don’t look back. That ze knows of, anyway. *glances at the monitor*
2:11 pm: Silence. Ze has passed out. I might, too. But no, I have work to do. I could eat but am dragging-tired so peel a couple of clementines and dive back into work.
Ze sleeps two whole hours, waking in time to go on a walk with Seamus. As he chows down on early dinner, LB and I work on snacks. I cut up bananas and ze shakes up the yogurt cup. We have fruit, yogurt and some toast. Ze makes a complete mess of drinking milk from a sippy cup, again, so I mop up the milk spattered floor while ze pulls out the Legos for another pass at “building”. This means clapping them together and putting them back in the box, waving a special one at me every so often.
Hir patience seems unusually good for being under the weather so I take advantage of the free hands to prep dinner. He never expects it but the night feels like it goes so much more smoothly if dinner is ready just as PiC’s getting home. Most LB & me nights, that doesn’t happen, but ze is hanging out and entertaining hirself with the Legos so the stove and oven are fired up.
PiC rolls in a bit after 6, some surprise thing held him up, but we’re still on track for a quick dinner and put LB to bed by 7:30. Excellent! I hide in the bathroom to decompress for about 20 minutes, and then get back to work. Meanwhile, PiC puts together LB’s lunch for the next day. I usually do that but he’s got it today.
My concentration is excellent the first three hours, then call it an early night closing in on midnight. My aches are getting the better of me and I’ve cleared the day’s work, go go efficiency! It’s best to lay my broken body down for actual rest.
What did I learn?
Being flexible is the only way to survive combo days. If I try to stick to a rigid schedule like I might set for a daycare day, my focus is fractured and I do nothing well. Being present in the moment means ze and I are fully engaged when ze needs me, and then I’m fully engaged with my work when I’m working.
PiC handles all the out of the house chores like dealing with all the auto chores, picking up milk or medication, or dropping off packages. This leaves me free to use my energy where it’s most needed. Don’t get me wrong, he does plenty around the house, too, but that’s for another post.
I used to think we should hire out some of the work at home but honestly as we settle into routines, it doesn’t feel like we need to anymore. Which is good because as it happens, there’s not much extra room in the budget anyway.
We had a long discussion recently about our routine, it gets a bit flabby when it seems like you’re doing the same things over and over, but you’re really slipping into chaos bit by bit.
We’re committing to an 11 pm bedtime and to carving out specific hours on the weekend for my work. Unrelated? Not at all. We rely on each other heavily but if we’re both sleep deprived, then we’re no good to each other. So, more sleep. And more dedicated time on the weekend to engage with my work because sometimes I just need more hours on that front.
:: How set is your daily routine? Do you prefer a set schedule or taking it as it goes?