Wednesday, May 30, 2007

missing the city


Summer's beginning and I'm in my windowless office- usually perfectly fine, but today I am nostalgic for what I would have been doing around this time last year- enjoying our lush if slightly seedy DC neighborhood, tutoring at the elementary school's summer program (which was so fun), running in Rock Creek Park (usually fun), and studying for the bar (not really ever fun). Even then I knew it was a temporary phase, a quiet space I needed to enjoy before the craziness of July and, oh yeah, being pregnant. But those cathedrals of trees, the blooming postage-stamp yards, and a day just stretched out for me to live inside my own head. Nice stuff.

The picture is from the NPS.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

what everybody says

I took care of baby B pretty much by myself this weekend- I went to the shore with my folks while G had to fly to KY. It was exhausting. Sure I had a cold, as did he, so maybe we were both not our best selves. But he was still awfully good, and it was still awfully hard. I'm starting the week more tired than I left it.
BUT man I miss that baby. And it's only been two and a half hours. Every day he engages more (perhaps some day he will even respond to me as much as his does to his true love, the tinny classical music mobile). And I hate missing it.

I brought taffy for the office, but it seems this is not a taffy-loving office. So, to make up for the slack, I'm eating my entire box of taffy- publicly. Having just passed the it's-OK-to-diet milestone, I'm pretty much using my diet in order to give eating taffy, chocolate, etc. an additional transgressive pleasure. As for actually using it for determining what goes into my body, eh.

Friday, May 18, 2007

grey day

A grey friday. The boy had a sad afternoon yesterday- fever, crying. We are pretty spoiled- he's never even too cranky, so we kind of freaked out. Today he still seems a little off; i don't like being away from him and have been on the verge of tears all morning (an excellent workplace strategy). I just want to take him home and take care of him and stay inside for a long time. At least it's friday.
But at least good music- songs from my cheer-myself-up-after-the-miscarriage CD from a year and a half ago- Pete Townsend, Let My Love Open the Door; Ani Difranco, Not Angry Any More ("I just want to walk through my life unarmed- to accept and just get by like my father used to do- but without all the acceptance and getting by that got my father through...").

Thursday, May 17, 2007

happy birthday to me

today is my birthday. I love my birthday- every time I see the date "May 17" it just makes me happy. Nothing particularly great needs to happen (though the alley party with the keg several years ago was pretty damn lovely). It's just nice that IT'S MY BIRTHDAY.
That being said, its a little weird that no one here knows. I always tell people- I always hate it when someone mentions offhand that oh yes last monday was my birthday because, as stated, I BELIEVE in birthdays. I buy cakes at lunch. I make paper hats out of printer paper (hmm, maybe I do know why people don't always tell me). But I feel like people here are already really nice to me and give me special treatment all day long, so inviting more special treatment by telling them it was the big day just seemed gratitious. But it makes me glad we are doing the whole family thing tonight. I can deal with a low-key helf of my birthday- but the whole day? No no no.
The boy has not had such a good day today, despite his obvious joy (to me) that his mother was born. He got his 2-month battery of nasty shots today and, while I was not there for them, apparently did not take it so well. Since he's been back here he's just been sleepy and hungry and sleeping a little lighter than usual- I hope that's the worst of it. I hope he doesn't remember this somewhere and every year on THE BEST DAY OF THE YEAR is haunted by a feeling that his parents are causing him pain. That can be the other 364 days of the year. Because we are of course.

Monday, May 14, 2007

heh heh


don't know what this has to do with babies and day care (well perhaps it means TOO much attention is a bad thing)- but a great picture, no?

watching the wee ones

ah monday- getting to be a political football at work. that's okay, i'll just sit in my office hole with my scary do-not-disturb-you-might-see-breasts-pumping sign on the door and wait for the storm to pass. Thankfully, my stupidness vanished enough last week so that the memo in question is good work.

Yesterday's Washington Post outlook section has an interesting article about people in my shoes, "how to handle the return" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/11/AR2007051102057.html) about coming back to work after a baby. Its an interesting article except for its total exclusion of the most stressful thing about going back to work- the scarcity of good-quality, affordable day care. Not a single mention. Perhaps Ms. Joyce has a nanny lined up?

I am very lucky- I have good day care. Its in the building, all certified. This should be the norm but is sadly extraordinary in our country. Even with the all-too-rare employer support that led to its creation, it's a whopping $1,500 a month, totally out of range for most people (including us, but who needs retirement savings?). And it still kills me- is it good enough? What about when he gets older and needs more stimulation?

There's a clear need for more public policy here- subsidies to make places like my day care affordable, if not for me than for many other folks. And as for the need for more places taking infants- how about some of those incentives used to build, say energy plants? But its one of those things people have been saying for years and no one does anything about, a stock play from the Democratic handbook that seems worn out even though its never been DONE. It's viewed as a rant, not a policy idea in the US.

Monday, May 7, 2007

being wrong

I have had an exciting run of being wrong at work the last few days- and i hate it. In the scheme of things it's not such a big deal, but I like to think of myself as the girl who has her stuff together, not the girl who doesn't read carefully enough, makes goofy assumptions, etc. I love being right, being the one in the room who really knows what's going on. Ever since I've come back from maternity leave, I'm not that one. Instead, my meeting notes more than likely contain notes like "what the ---?"
Eh.