because I have all the time in the world...

I spent a lot of time thinking and planning out Santa's gift for M.  A dollhouse.  

While I did go with a pretty basic design from Melissa and Doug, which some of you may recognize, I loved thinking about it for weeks, reading reviews, etc.  And then when it came, I wallpapered it.  I added a nursery, bedroom, and bathroom furniture set from Pottery Burn, as the nursery furniture is a close match to M's room.  And the M&D bedroom and bath that came with the house were not so exciting.  The floor in the kitchen kinda looks like the floor in our kitchen. 

I am pretty excited about it.  And I am even more excited that M seems to love it.  Seeing her playing with it makes me so warm and fuzzy inside.  There just aren't words to properly describe how happy it makes me.  

It rocks to be Santa.

Clinging tightly

I am a little relieved, if that's the right word, to read other blog sisters (like here, and here) similarly feeling particularly effected by all the really horrible stuff happening lately.  Relieved, because I am feeling this same way.  While I feel like it is just one medium-bad thing after another lately in my life, it is one absolutely horrible thing after another in the world around us.  

I feel the pain of a child's suffering and/or death so much more now that I have a child of my own; I hadn't really expected that.  And the shooting in CT kinda put me over the top.  I am definitely one of those women who prides herself on not being scared of the dark or easily intimidated, but the CT shooting on top of all the other stuff lately, our home break-in, the continued home break-ins on our block since then, add it all up and I admit it.  I have gotten spooked.




A few nights ago, M was having trouble falling asleep.  It was about 8:30pm and we were sitting in her room in the dark.  The house was just about entirely dark because I'd been sitting in her room with her for quite a while and hadn't gone to turn on lights.  She was laying across my lap in the comfy rocking chair and we were singing and talking and feeling particularly snuggly.  Then I heard a noise.  I couldn't tell where it came from exactly but I really stopped in my tracks when I heard it.  M immediately clambered up and clung very tightly around my neck.  I couldn't tell if she'd heard it too or was reacting to my reaction.  In some ways it doesn't really matter which it was.

The point is that we are clingy with each other.  Very.  I have always loved to carry her around, and she loves to be carried too, but we've both been particularly clingy lately.

My parents arrived on Wednesday.  I was definitely relieved to get some more adults in the house, as it was getting harder and harder to keep it together and not let my mind go into freak-out mode. 

But it is also hard.  They want to play with M, give her baths, read to her, put her to bed.  But she wants to be with me.  And she cries about it.

Plus, they have such a different parenting style.  I am definitely into the parenting advice of giving M advance notice about what will happen next.  She responds to this really well too.  So I always let her know a couple minutes before that we are going to change her diaper, wash hands, etc.  And then I tell her it's time and ask her to come with me.  If she doesn't, I tell her that I'll give her to the count of 5 and then I'm going to carry her to where we need to be.  About 50% of the time she comes over happily before I get to 5.  25% of the time she thinks it is hilarious to have me come get her (as I always make it fun).  15% of the time she doesn't seem to care one way or the other; I carry her to where we need to go and she's cool with it.  And 10% of the time she complains bitterly but accepts it pretty quickly.  I like to think she gets over it quickly because she knew it was coming.

My parents?  They go over and scoop her up with no warning and take her off to wash her hands, or to be put in her high chair, etc.  They don't ask her which bib she wants to wear, but rather just put one on her while she's freaking out. about the sneak-attack high chair placement.  I always ask which bib she wants to wear, as this way she's then happy to put it on because it's one she's in the mood to wear.  Or, if she doesn't want to wear it, if she's not eating anything too messy, I just skip it.  If she is eating messy food, I explain that if she wants to eat yogurt, say, that she needs to wear a bib because it's particularly messy.  I am always pleasantly surprised that this logic just about always works.  It's pretty cool, if you ask me.  I think little kids understand a lot more than I ever would have guessed.

Three things about this parental situation that make me sad:

1) I hate seeing M so upset.  She gets this perfectly rectangular mouth when she cries and it absolutely breaks my heart.  I try so hard to avoid the rectangle-mouth cry as a consequence, so I don't do well when my parents so casually and carelessly (and in my mind, needlessly) inflict it on her.

2) It is really counterproductive.  Once M goes into rectangle-mouth mode, it is hard to get her back to happy-kid mode. 

3) My self-righteous mother was just going on and on the other day about how only really mean parents would make their toddler sit on Santa's lap even though they were scared and upset.  So... if M gets scared and upset when my mom rips her from my arms in the grocery store when I just got her calmed down... 

you get my point.

I guess the question I have is this.  How do you know if you are being too clingy with your child?  Is there such a thing when they are 20 months old?  I definitely don't want a co-dependent relationship, that would be mean of me to not teach M how to be independent.  But, I also really want my arms to always be a warm and safe place for her.  Where is the line between good mothering and co-dependency?

receiving gifts

A little over a year ago, M sent her daddy an email and told him that she thought I'd like a particular ring for my birthday that she'd seen online.  It had her birthstones and her daddy's birthstones alternating.  She's awesome that way, always looking out for me,  :)

You will likely not be surprised that I did get it for my birthday.

It was amongst the things that were stolen.  And while I realy liked the ring, it didn't have that huge of a sentimental value since I had picked it out and it had been my idea.  but I was sad it was gone, as I did really like it and it was sort of a representational gift from M and her daddy.

Then in the mail yesterday I get a box from a company that I didn't remember ordering from.  I opened it and was super surpised that it was from the same place as where my ring was from.  It had earring that matched the ring, and a note from dh saying that this would match my ring... he'd ordered them a week or so before the robbery.

I was really really touched.  I totally teared up.  I needed the special gesture, and it as so amazing to get nice jewelry that addressed that new psychological void.  It isn't like I actually wear much jewelry at any one time, but I still feel a hole in my psyche.

Now, can I ask you a really hard question to ask?  I need some honest advice.  I love the concept and the gesture of the earrings.  But, I don't really like the earrings.  I am not into big earings, esp heavy ones.  I usually just wear very small earrings, like teeny tiny hoops.  These are big and heavy.  But I love the gift part.

Have you ever gotten a really really meaningful gift of jewelry that you loved for all the sentimental reasons, but that totally wasn't your style? what did you do? did you just wear the piece(s) anyway?

this and that

Nothing soothes like a lot of web friends telling you that you have every right to drown your worries with wine aand smeared mascara.  THANK YOU.

M totally had a meltdown on Sat evening, b/c no nap usu does... I took the opportunity to lose it with her.  We sat on the couch and cried together until we both realized that it was kind of funny.

I made an apt to get my forehead botoxed tomorrow.  Maybe I don't have any jewelry, but I can express my vanity in other superficial ways now that I will have some insurance money coming my way.  And I went out and bought an iPad mini, which I am loving.  Maybe a bit too much.  Add in a new coat from Anthropologie and I'd say that the retail therapy made a nice dent in my bad mood.  At least I no longer feel the need to rip the insurance guy's eyeballs out.

To add to my superficiality, which I can be honest about even while recognizing that its nothing to take pride in... so a few months ago I was interviewed by an investigative journalist who is doing a story on some financial issues in higher ed.  This is something I got immersed into in a somewhat controversial way a couple of years ago, and it turns out that he seems to agree with me (which always makes someone seem more favorable).

any of you ever meet an investigative journalist? me, I have now met two.  They are both tall and exceedingly good looking with a take-no-prisoners attitude that, to be totally homest, totally appeals to me.  I wonder if that's a trend or a coincidence? not that I have a thing for men like that, but that investigative journalists are all like that...

Any who.  This man is hot, but wears a wedding ring.  I am kinda happy about that b/c it precludes/removes from my mind weird inappropriate thoughts, but I do still want to make a good impression.

We have had some back and forth phone calls over the last few days to figure out when to film this follow-up interview.  He ends up calling me around 6pm this evening, which is smack towards the end of M's dinner time.  So we talk a bit about Monday, and I am managing to keep my cool-all-business persona that I've been emphasizing with him, cause he's like that.

Of course, M starts totally losing it.  And I mean losing it.

What is up with the universal law that the minute you get on the phone, toddlers totally go from happy collegial baby to freak-out-birth-control-type-behavior?

So I am pretty sure this guy doesn't have kids, cause anyone in their right parenting mind would have let me get off the phone without needing much prompting.  But NOOOOO. He just keeps talking and talking and asking questions that I am now too distracted from being able to answer.

Think I blew my "i am so cool and all business serious" aura?  ;)
makes me chuckle when I think about what musta been going through his mind.

On a different train of thought, that is somewhat related, it kinda makes me a little sad when people without kids just see that side of M.  She really isn't like that very often, but I really remember being totally frightened when I was witness to that kind of kid behavior when I was pre-kid.  It is a little sad when people give you the look, you know the one, the one that says, "your crazy wild child has just extinguished the one glimmer of baby-desire I was having, and I am pretty convinced that I will now stay on birth control forever."  My kid really isn't the birth-control-advocacy type, she's usually the awe-i-want-one-of-those types.  so it bums me out a bit when people get the wrong first impression.

at what point?

The last few months have been kind of hard.  I haven't posted much because it has just been one thing after another at home.  Nothing hits the "tragedy" mark, and so I have been trying really really hard to go on as if things are wonderful.  Essentially, they are.  But at what point do you decide that you just need to break down, feel sorry for yourself, and cry?

September: husband gets a hernia, no longer able to lift child or do any house chores for fear of making it worse

Early November: husband has his hernia operation, he's got a bit of a hypochondriac streak in him and this is characteristically "horrible"

But then he really doesn't get better, and in fact feels much worse than before the surgery.  Turns out that 5% of people who have this surgery get nerve damage in their pelvic region that also runs down their leg.  He's got that.  And his testicles hurt really bad, which makes for some amazingly panicked needs for "adjustment" at unexpected times.

Over the last couple of years his hands have started to hurt worse and worse, and he has a hard time fully opening them (actually, he can't).  Turns out he's got Dupuytren's contracture, exacerbated by bad arthritis.  We saw the specialist a week ago and learn about all the options for treatment, but after the bad hernia operation we are both a bit hesitant.

Place all of this into the context of a rather crazy time at work.  For example, our early childhood education program is run through the university, and it totally rocks.  On halloween we learned that the administrators way high up who oversee it decided to hand it over to a for-profit company (that would be on the advice of Bain Consulting, which is a sister corporation of Bright Horizon's --the for-profit childcare company that also employs the daughter of the administrator who made the decision to outsource without any consultation).

While I have nothing against a for-profit day care, if you have the absolute best, the center where research is being done and they are setting the ideal standards for early childcare nation-wide, why would you downgrade to child care that is "acceptable"?  So, we fought it.  I fought it.  I have connections into some of the power players on campus and so I raised the alarm with all of them.  Which then meant that I was deeply embedded in the fight.  I really didn't have time for this, but I had to do it.  We won.  Crazy to think, but we did win.  So it was worth it.  But it was exhausting.

Add on top of all of this that I am in the midst of my heavy teaching semester and all of the other crappola that comes along with running a lab.  Plus, the administrative staff in my dept got merged with another one, we lost all of our staff, and I haven't had a financial statement about any of my research funds since August.  But who has time to chase that down and get it fixed?  Anyway.

Dh absolutely has to go to the field this year, no way to back out if he is at all healthy enough to get on an airplane.  Long story behind this, but I agree with him.  He has to go.  So he is working all this time to leave on Dec 4th, Tuesday night.  Leaving for 2 months of fieldwork is always stressful.  But given all the health issues leading up to it, this was the worst departure yet.

And then Dh gets a bad cold over the weekend.

M and I were planning on taking him to the airport Tuesday night.  We get home a few minutes before 5pm on Tuesday.  I think it odd when I unlock the front door that the key turns really easily, like it wasn't really locked.

And then we get inside and walk into the kitchen.  The back door is wide open.

Yep, you guessed it.  Someone had kicked in the door.  They tore apart all the drawers in our bedroom, stealing virtually all of my jewelry save for the couple of pieces that I had just thrown in a drawer messily.

Keep in mind, Dh has to leave for the airport in 1.5 hours.  I call the police.  And then I frantically try to find someone who can drive Dh to the airport.

M sits in her highchair for the next 2 hours, happily watching as all of this unfold.  The police officer comes and starts the report.  Then, about 6:30pm the detective shows up to take prints.  While she's here, Dh's ride arrives and he has to leave.  For two months.  We all say goodbye in front of the mess that is our house and the detective looking for prints.

Over the next few hours I was able to clean up and figure out all of my jewelry that was stolen.

You should immediately stop reading this email and go take photographs of all of your stuff.  Anything you think might be worth $500 or more, get it itemized on your insurance plan.  

I was woefully unprepared and will lose so much of the monetary worth.  And then there were the pieces that had huge sentimental value, like the ones from my deceased grandmother, the earrings that were the last gift my grandfather ever gave to my mom that she had just given to me, the ring Dh and M gave me for my birthday last year...

I then learn that our homeowners insurance won't deal with me because the policy is not in my name.  But keep in mind Dh is in a remote part of a developing country with no telephone or email access.  Luckily I just remembered that we set up a power of attorney for when one of us is out of the country, but now I have to get the lawyer involved.

I then realize that the thief also stole an Alexander McQueen scarf with skulls that a very wealthy friend had given me in September (well, she really gave it to little M, but I've been "borrowing" it from her).  I would never have spent that much on a scarf, but I loved it and have been wearing it very happily.

I had splurged over the last year and bought two ridiculously expensive pairs of designed jeans.  They took both of those.  They stole my cool floweredy thermos.

And then this morning, when I went to pack up the diaper bag to leave the house with M, I realized that they stole the diaper bag too.  I loved this diaper bag.  Again, something I had spent much too much on, one of those petunia picklebottom bags, brown with big pink tulips.  I loved it, loved it, I tell you.

WHO STEALS A DIAPER BAG???

That one crossed the line.  I was upset about the jewelry, the clothes, the beautiful scarf.  But not as much as I might have thought I would be.  I feel safe in the house despite the invasion.  They came in the middle of the day when we weren't home.  They didn't tear up stuff just to tear it up.  They took two ipads, but nothing of my husbands or my baby's.  But then, they took the diaper bag.

That put me over the edge.  NOW, I AM PISSED OFF.

You'll love this one:  there have been a rash of thefts just like this in my neighborhood over the last year or two.  It's a pretty tight radius, less than a mile.  There was a house just down the block that got robbed on Tuesday too.

And guess what?  The lady who lives next door, her daughter is a meth addict who recently got out of prison for, you guessed it, robbery.  Her mother keeps all of their valuables locked in her bedroom because her daughter had done identity theft on her a few years ago.

I have a deep, deep urge to go over to their house and demand to look in her bedroom.  I want my diaper bag back.

I think I am about at my whit's end.  I really want to break down and cry, but I can't because I don't have the energy to then wash my face and redo my mascara.  The situation is that pathetic.

And M has stopped napping.  She's in her crib as I type this banging on the railings, singing to herself.

I am so tired.  So, so tired.  Just how many ridiculously medium-bad things can happen in a row?

BTW, my neighbor has bedbugs.