So now I understand...

It has been a while since my last post. Why? My daughter.

As I said in my last post, I was going to begin shouldering more responsibilities around here with my husband working even more hours than he already works, but that description does not cut it. I already work 40+ hours as a teacher, and now I am the equivalent of a single parent with a husband. I have started to run at school with another teacher friend because exercise at home is impossible; I have even had to hire someone once a week to come over and watch the baby while I catch up with the housework and my school work. The struggle continues into the weekend while I am trying to get the necessities done (vacuuming is not one of them,) while hubby is outside working on the studio. He even commented like our situation is a bit like weathering a hurricane - we are just holding the fort until the storm passes.

My coping skills have gotten better. The dishes are getting done a lot more often, the vegetables from the farm share are getting eaten a lot quicker, and I am still employed. The lady who watches my daughter asked last week, "I know this is a silly question, but how do you go to the bathroom? There is no room in the bathroom for a seat and she screams any time you put her down, not to mention the risk of letting her out of your sight." I had to answer that I put her on the bed in the bedroom right next to the bathroom and watch her from there. This led to a scary moment when she almost flipped off the bed, but I caught her... um, midstream.

I do not understand people who have children on purpose without a steady, trustworthy husband anymore, but I do understand their pain. I also have garnered a new respect for my mother who had four children, and wonder how she got around to do anything. Just the other morning I woke up at my usual time, but my daughter decided she needed to get up with me making the morning processes twice as long. I could not read the paper or drink my tea because of it, and I had to change my shirt because she tossed oatmeal all over it.

Mom always woke up at 5:30 am. I used to think it was because she was a masochist, but now I understand.

Back Pains...

Why is it when someone says that I need to shoulder more responsibility, my back ends up paying the price?

Back when we had a dishwasher, I remember complaining about not having enough time to do the dishes. Then, when we moved into a house without a dishwasher, I remember really complaining about not having enough time doing the dishes and wondering what I was doing to not have enough time to do the dishes. Now that I still don’t have a dishwasher and have an infant, I really don’t understand how I could have complained with a dishwasher, and I am pretty skeptical of the me 6 months ago.

With the new year and my husband, still building the studio but now in busy season with his CPA firm, I have had to take on a lot more responsibility. Things like paying the bills, housework, feeding animals really add up when someone is relying on you so heavily – and I do mean heavily. She wants to be toted everywhere I go, and she has had no trouble gaining weight. She is still working on the crawling thing, so in the meantime, I’m having to carry her everywhere and do more around here.

House chores for a lot of people can usually wait until the weekend, but for us in our little house, it has to be done every day. Yesterday I wondered what was going on that the dog was so underfoot, but then it occurred to me – there is a lot less foot room for human/cat/baby/dog to walk in. My husband’s paintings have filled up an entire room, again waiting for the studio to be completed, and the baby’s things are beginning to infringe on our living space with her new high chair (bought used,) and pack-and-play. Everything has to fit together like a puzzle, and if one piece is out of order, it will need to be set right before someone trips on it.

Now I have a new strategy – I’m strapping her to my back. It’s the same baby carrier I made a while back, but now she is on my back. The house is still not bigger, the husband is still busy working in the studio, dinner is still not cooked, and the dishes still need to be done, but now that she is asleep on my back I don’t have to lay down with her to put her to sleep.

It helps me ‘shoulder’ this responsibility a little better. As they say, when all else fails, get a back up.

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Salad Days

First weeks back are never easy, and this past week was no exception.  The school just learned that we have a septic tank system not connected with the city by having the septic tank explode all over the place.  We are having record breaking temperatures, and school is not called off even though I teach in a portable building about a quarter-mile away from the bathroom (that just exploded - the other one is considerably farther off,) and my daughter is getting used to a new sitter.  My laundry is getting out of control, my kitchen really needs some re-organization, and my husband has been spending most of his time in frigid temperatures outside working on his studio, so this has been a stressful week; still, I something amazing has begun, and I can't wait to share.

Last year a friend of my husbands commented that he belongs to a garden share.  I have been wanting to join one for years, but I was under the impression that they are usually hard to get into.  I am pleased to say that my assumption was wrong, and I joined one, and got my first batch of veggies this week.

I have not had food that tasted so real since I ate the food off my grandmother's farm.  The tangerines are sweeter, the carrots much more vibrant, and lettuce so much more... well, lettucier.  Also, I got vegetables that I never would have picked out (partially because I have no idea what it actually is,) but all of it tastes so good.  I have never picked out radishes.  I don't think I have had one since Mom forced me to eat one when I was a little kid, but now I love them.  I embrace the radishes, fennel, green onions, and variety of other things I am now using in salads because it would be a real shame to cook them.

The baby-weight is still not gone, and she is 6 months old.  I went jogging the other day, and I realized that, wow, I really am getting nearer and nearer to 30, and that this does make a difference.  I know that eating a huge salad is not the only thing I need to be doing, but this has been the easiest New Year's resolution I have ever made.

It's Christmas Times, Cat

This is my daughter's first Christmas, so 'hiding' Christmas presents from her is about as difficult as buying them. She was with us when we found the little bath-finger-puppets, heard us talking about them, and I still suspect that she will be appropriately surprised to see them Christmas Eve in her stocking. I mean, everything is still a surprise to a 5 month old. ("Look! A clean diaper!")

I anticipated some searching from the dog, considering her nose knows she got a chewy stick and where it's located out of reach, but who I should have been more concerned about is the cat.

I knew I was in trouble when I first got home with it. It's a 'rat' stuffed with real, organic catnip, and a bell. Unfortunately, it was a little too perfect considering that he took it out of the shopping bag it was in (under everything else from my other trips yesterday,) and was swatting it around on the floor. So I put it into a Christmas stocking, under something else, anchored by a basket, and by this morning, stocking, basket, and everything else on the dryer was on the floor.

Other attempts to keep the cat away from his Christmas present have failed in the past, but not to this extent. It's hard to keep from thinking that he looks forward to this game we play every year, (a bit of cat and mouse?) but the most frustrating thing is that once I give it to him he is just going to take one swipe at it and it will land under a chair/sofa/dryer/other piece of heavy furniture and will stay there until we get back from Christmas.

Then, he will just ignore it.

Ediface

One thing I have learned by teaching is the best way to control a large group of people is by learning their names. As soon as what they do is no longer anonymous, they suddenly start thinking that these things can come back to haunt them. This makes this a little difficult for me since I seem to be handicapped by something far worse than my inability to spell - I cannot recognize faces or names.

Usually, I remember a kid's name for all the wrong reasons - he/she is usually acting out in class, to remind the kid to get me some work they missed due to excessive absences, or some other obnoxious reason for me to ask them something. I, for some reason, never see those kids after graduation. I only see the kids that I really enjoyed teaching, and for the life of me I cannot remember their names.

I can remember dog's names, but that's usually because dogs actually look like their names. Stubby, Reagan, Bellatrix, or Rusty are memorable; Jason, John, Abby, or Taylor are not. Is it because dog owners are better at naming than the rest of the population? Obviously not. I think it's because we spend time with dogs before naming them, unlike the practice with our children. I cannot imagine a parent deciding to name their child Twinkle Le'Star after knowing the child for any period of time, realizing that this would be social suicide.

But my problem is not only names but faces. If people wore the same thing every day, never changed their fair, or if there just wasn't so many people to remember in the first place, I would be better off. I have this one child in my class that looks completely different from each week to the next so as soon as I start to recognize the child, she changes. Just today I went to my box and pulled out a package of pictures for the yearbook that I could not recognize. It was obviously air-brushed, and that person was wearing way too much make-up.

Then I realized it was me.

Pets and the Neurotic

I don't know if pets are only a mirror to their 'masters' or if owning a pet makes you crazy, but I know that sanity is usually in short supply during the work week, and the cat and dog mirror my sentiments. Usually, since the dog goes with me to work, she comes home and crashes and the cat... well, he's usually crashed. But lately, both cat and dog have been acting out.

The dog has decided that she wants to sleep on the bed. This is commonplace for many well meaning, otherwise sane people I know, but this is gross to me. I see what she rolls around in, and I know what she thinks is perfume - I don't want that in the same place I go into deep REM. This is compounded with the problem that there is no room. My cat has always slept with me and the hubby, which has never been a huge problem (hey, he doesn't roll around in his litter-box,) but now that my daughter has come into the picture, our little bed is really crowded. We do not need another animal in the bed, furry or not.

But she does not see it this way. She has been convinced that she is a little lap dog since she was a puppy, and now that she is 60 pounds, she still is not aware of her girth. She just sees the baby, the cat, my husband and me enjoying a night of nursing while she gets the rug. But my dog is not a pacifist. Oh no. Passive-aggressive, maybe, but she is not going to just roll over and play dead on this issue. Now, any time she gets a chance, she goes and sneaks a nap on the bed, making my OCD husband paranoid.

Now, if this was it, I think we would be okay but no. The cat has now developed a penchant for baby socks. Yes, baby socks. I go through all this trouble to pair and ball up my infant daughter's socks, and the cat goes through an equal amount of trouble to stalk them down and bat them onto the floor. I did have them in a convenient basket until I woke up one morning to find the basket half empty and socks everywhere. I tried covering the basket up to no avail. I tried putting them into the drawer, and in walks the cat with Snoopy Socks in his mouth like he just killed them.

Maybe a person is already crazy if they get an animal, expecting it to be loyal and loving and sit on your lap only when it is convenient to you and greet you at the door. I will admit, as long as you are willing to accept compromises, you can get an animal to do most of those things, but forget it being convenient to you. It is a wonderful thing; however, just as there is never such thing as a completely sane human, we can never have a completely sane/normal/predictable cat/dog/pet.

(And we thought the shedding would be the most of our worries.)