Reward for a job well done.

When I came home from work yesterday, our little girl met me at the gate carrying this:



Three dandelions, two violets, and one spray of Queen Anne's lace, presented in an empty Danimals bottle with a radiant smile. Together, rivaling the two dozen red roses given to me by her daddy on Valentine's Day. But then again, I think her daddy probably had something to do with these flowers too, don't you think?

Happy and sad.

I taught my little girl two new words yesterday.

When she woke up in the morning, she nursed, popped off, and then started blowing me kisses from three inches away. It was, once again, the cutest and sweetest thing ever. I put on a big smile, pointed to my face, and said "Happy!" She got it immediately, put on her own big beautiful smile, and said "Hatty!" I told her, "You make mama so happy," and she smiled even bigger before giving me big hugs.

Last thing in the evening, in the minutes before the little girl's bedtime, her daddy and I had a fight. He has a huge, booming voice that shakes the walls, and he yelled at me and called me stupid. Rather than escalate further, I picked her up and walked out of the living room and into her room, shutting the door behind us. I didn't want to further traumatize her by bursting into tears, but clearly I was unhappy and she looked anxious. I made a sad face, pointed to it, and said "Sad," and she made that crumpled-up face she makes the moment before she bursts into tears. I said, "It makes me sad when daddy yells at me and calls me names," and she threw her arms and legs around me in a full-body hug and put kisses all over my face.

I know it's wrong to let her see us fighting, or to encourage her to take sides. But she happened to be there when the fight just came out of nowhere, and I couldn't hide my upset from her, because right then was time for our bedtime routine. And she really did do the most wonderful job making her mama feel better. But this can't happen again - it's not the job of a 1 1/2-year-old to comfort mama after daddy makes mama cry. Fortunately that doesn't actually happen all that often.

By the way, after further discussion of the quad issue, my husband realized that he's just going to have to trade in his motorcycle or sell it on consignment, emotional attachment or not. He thinks he can get $4K for it. I'd be far more comfortable with financing $1K than $5K. This, I can live with. Or, even less expensively, he's considering just rehabbing a dirt bike he picked up for cheap that's been sitting in his garage for over a year. He thinks he can get it running for just a couple of hundred dollars, and that that would satisfy his need for speed for at least one or two riding seasons. Works for me.

Waterworks.

Yesterday I was watching my Sunday morning show, CBS Sunday Morning. They did a segment on a musical therapist, who works in the children's unit of a hospital. They showed some of the kids he works with - a 30-week preemie, a 5-year-old boy just two hours past his tenth brain surgery, a maybe 3-month-old baby recovering from a head injury - all these little kids with horrible awful diseases. I was instantly sobbing. No buildup, no sniffles and leaky tears first, just sudden gut-wrenching sobs. I could see that these were all other people's precious little babies, and could sympathize with how helpless they must feel watching their babies suffering and not being able to make it stop. I sobbed through the whole thing, and then went into the living room where I could barely tell my husband why I was crying through the sobs. Our little girl came over to investigate why mama was crying, hopped up on my lap, and let me smother her with kisses and hugs. I asked her never to get really critically ill or injured, please please please, because I just don't think I could bear it.

A little more personal than usual.

There's no reason I can't express some deep personal shit here given that I have maybe only five occasional readers. (Hi! you all.) I haven't so much taken advantage of my blog's potential for airing the personal shit, but right now I'm just feeling this odd need to spew.

I'm so discontented right now - not all the time, but right now, in this particular second. I'm a federal employee, a member of the executive branch, and I therefore cannot express much of my frustration at the current political situation. There's lots I could say but choose not to for that reason. But events right now are at a point where, in my previous life, I'd have been out marching and shouting in the streets. This job has allowed me and my family a measure of financial security and peace of mind that's never been present before. On a personal level, I've never been doing so well. But on a larger level, things feel so very precarious and full of the potential for chaos and explosive downfall. I will say nothing more specific than that, and I will not say it anywhere else but here. I feel muzzled by my job, and ethically compromised by my addiction to the security that job brings and my willingness to keep my mouth shut just to keep that job. I feel like a sellout.

And it's not like I'm even getting rich. Finally, this year so far, for the first time, I've been able to start saving a little money in addition to keeping all the bills paid. I've never, in my whole 35 years, been able to save money. I've always needed to spend every last dollar I've made just to get by. And now my husband, who I loves dearly, has made it very clear that he needs a quad (a four-wheel off road vehicle). He needs it because he needs something to do. He is a motorcycle mechanic who will no longer ride his motorcycle on the road because of the incivility and incompetency of automobile drivers who he must share the road with. Things with motors that go fast - vroom! - are part of his very soul. I knew this when I married him. I knew this when, as we had previously agreed, he quit working at the motorcycle shop to care for our child. I can see that there is a piece of his male soul that is shriveling up and dying for lack of any outlet for his visceral need for speed. He feels that he can meet that need with a quad, and that unfortunately is going to cost about $5,000, buying something used. He would much rather not trade in his motorcycle because he bought it new and paid it off and is emotionally attached to it. So just as we're starting to get ahead, I'm going to have to take some of the money I would much rather be saving towards our daughter's college education and instead spend it on 72 months of payments on a quad. I'm trying to think of it as something comparable to paying my husband a salary for the work he does caring for our child. But part of me is so incredibly frustrated. He needs this. But I still see it as a luxury item - if we're going to spend $5,000 I'd rather pay a landscaper to fix our yard so our daughter can play on grass instead of dirt, or get our crumbling oil-stained driveway repaved. I don't want to spend my money on this, but for me to tell this to my husband will sound to him like I'm saying that his emotional needs aren't a priority to me. It is - I just wish his priorities were a little less expensive.

I'm unhappy, too, that I don't have anything in my life right now except work (even though I really do love what I do and my specific job) and being a mama to my little girl (even though I truly do love that too). Whenever I'm out of work, I'm with her. He gets to go out and play softball (he's at practice right now) and soon he'll be leaving for a whole Saturday or Sunday, on a regular basis, to go down to Connecticut and go quadding with his brother who already has one and rides it regularly. My having time to do adult things on my own is not currently a priority of his. Granted, I haven't pushed the issue. I've started to lose sight of what it was that I even liked to do on my own before she was born. But I need to. I don't know who the hell I am anymore. I used to independently study Russian, but I've forgotten most of it by now. I still know some French but I've lost a lot of that too. I'd like to take classes, or join practice groups. I want to assert my right to the free time to do that. I'd also have to assert my right to some of our discretionary spending to pay for those things, which decreases the amount available to buy him a quad. That will be hard, because for him it's a deep emotional passionate need, whereas for me it's just something I find enjoyable and fun to do and achieve.

I'm just unhappy right now. Not miserable, not depressed, just feeling a little put-upon and neglected by myself. Our little girl woke a couple of times during the night and then got up too early, so she was whiny and annoying all morning and didn't even have any kisses for me to make up for it. On the days that my role as mama is more frustrating and irritating than enjoyable, it brings my feelings of discontent in other areas to the surface. But every day with a 1 1/2 year old can't be all hearts and flowers and rainbows. And I have to take off my happy-mommy rosy goggles sometimes, long enough to see the garden of my own personality withering and dying from neglect.

If anyone's out there, thanks for "listening" to me whine. I promise I'm done for now.

Achingly sweet

My little girl and I have a bedtime routine down. I turn off the lights in her room and we lay down together in her (queen-size) bed, and she nurses while gazing at the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling. Then when she's done, she pops off and plays in the dark with the pillows for a few minutes. Then she lays across me (willingly or not), head on my upper left arm, right arm tucked under my back, right arm around my neck, and her body crossed over mine. I sing her the same three songs as lullabies every night: "Good Night" off the Beatles' White Album, "La Vie En Rose" (don't know who originally did this one, but it's the English version), and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Sometimes, if she doesn't want to go to sleep, she cries and struggles, and I have to sing all three songs twice before she succumbs. When she's finally asleep, I lay there listening to her deep breathing and the ticking of her wall clock for a few minutes (this is what "peace" sounds like to me), before gently rolling her off of me and sneaking quietly out of the room.

Last night, we had a new and lovely development. I gave her a bath first, and smoothed lavendar-scented baby lotion all over her. Then, after we nursed, she was playing peekaboo with the pillows and I asked her if she was ready to go night-night. She replied "Uh-uh." Then I asked her if she wanted Mama to sing night-night songs to her. She practically leapt into my arms for that. She tucked her arm deep behind my back and gazed deeply into my eyes. I asked if she liked Mama to sing to her and she nodded firmly. I said "I love you," and she puckered up for a kiss, still looking at me expectantly. I started singing "Good Night" to her, which goes like this:

Now it's time to say good night
Good night, sleep tight
Now the sun turns out his light
Good night, sleep tight
Dream sweet dreams for me
Dream sweet dreams for you

Close your eyes and I'll close mine
Good night, sleep tight
Now the moon begins to shine
Good night, sleep tight
Dream sweet dreams for me
Dream sweet dreams for you

As I sang, she opened up her mouth and started singing too - "night.... night...night... night..." while still gazing into my eyes. (Actually, it's more like "niii.... niii..." because she doesn't yet have the hang of consonants at the end of words.) She wasn't really on key or keeping to the rhythm of the song, but she was definitely singing along with me, and she did this through the whole song. It took a lot of effort to keep my voice from going all wobbly, but tears of love and joy were pouring out of my eyes. When the song ended, she just closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep as I moved on to "La Vie En Rose."

I held her extra-long after I fininshed "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," just breathing in the scent of lavendar and warm baby, savoring the aching sweetness of the moment. I will always remember that when she was 18 1/2 months old, she sang along with Mama for the first time.

Has it really been 2 1/2 weeks?!

Whoops, didn't mean to let my blog go neglected for so long! Anyway, Auntie T made it through her surgery and is recovering as well as can be expected. Fingers crossed, she will continue to get better and better.

I have been very, very busy. You know, doing all that lawyerin' type stuff that I get paid for. I'm doing a labor arbitration May 31/June 1 so I have to prep my witnesses and put together my opening statement and solidify my strategy and all that. I really do love this stuff. It's very satisfying to the control freak in me. And I have to say that damn it, I love it when a plan comes together. My theory of the case is applying very nicely to the facts and the evidence, and I am feeling strong and good about it. Of course, anything could fly out of control at any moment, but that's just the litigator's life. I think this one will be fine.

When I'm home I never want to waste my time on the Internet - I want to be loving on my baby, and when she naps, I do more work, or clean my house, or cook, or even get a pedicure (first time since 2 weeks before she was born, what luxury!) And guess what? Right now I hear her waking up! Gotta go, love ya all...