cindy's world

I’m at home right now in the first of 3 days off this week to spend with Allie. Jayne left for New York last nite. For next week and half of the following week, Jayne’s friend Missy will be here to care for Allie in Jayne’s place. That’s right, our nanny found us a relief nanny, AND “trained” her, too! Allie seems to love Missy so much and so quickly that Jayne’s jealous. It may be weird and cute, but I’m happy so many people love Allie.

Allie’s napping right now, and I have beets baking to puree later on. Earlier after we played for a bit indoors, we went for a 40 minute walk around the neighborhood, during which she hummed along with her musical toy and pointed at crows and random things. Putting her down for naps and even bedtimes are psychologically easier on me, now, because she basically does it all herself. I go thru a small short nap routine (putting her fuzzy blanket in the crib, turning on the air purifier, closing the bathroom door), and then she’s already pulling toward the crib. I put her in, she rubs her cheek on her blanket, smiles at me, I whisper a nite-nite to her and walk out as she smiles at me. She takes however much time she needs to settle down (usually 10-20 mins in the AM nap, up to 30 in the PM nap, so I get her in the crib in plenty of time), and she naps for a little over an hour in the AM, between 1-2 hrs in the PM. At bedtime, she rarely falls asleep nursing and stays asleep for the crib transfer anymore, so I lay her gently in her crib and leave to let her settle down, which she does quietly, sometimes bear-wrestling for awhile, but she does.

I think why it was so nerve-wracking before, was because she didn’t have the ability to help herself sleep or stay asleep or go back to sleep, so I had to bridge that gap, but there was only so much I could do. I had to hold her and gently sway back and forth until she’s comfortable enough to fall asleep against me, then transfer her to the crib, praying that if she wakes up a little, that it’s not so wide awake that she’ll be up wailing as soon as she hits the mattress, necessitating me to pick her up and try to soothe her again. If she woke up due to noise or whatever back then, she was unable to soothe herself back to sleep, so the nap was over and I’d just have an overtired kid on my hands until the next nap. Same thing with bedtime. Now that she’s older and has had plenty of practice between then and now self-soothing and getting used to the more common sounds, she doesn’t wake up, or will just sick her thumb if necessary, close her eyes or flop in a different position, and go back to sleep. Since she bridges her own gap between awake and sleep, all I have to do is get her to her crib at the appropriate times.

Her AM nap used to be 1.5 – 2 hours, but it’s been closer to an hour these days, and one day she skipped her PM nap. Since that’s not the nap that’s supposed to disappear (the AM nap is), I looked it up. So turns out that the AM nap is supposed to decrease and start to disappear between 10-12 months (i.e., now), but if the PM nap starts to disappear, it’s because the AM nap is too long. To protect the PM nap, which is to stay until she’s past toddlerhood, she’s to take no more than a 90-minute AM nap. The way to do that is to wake her between 60-90 mins at her 9am nap, and/or put her to bed a bit earlier at night so she’s better rested in the mornings and less dependent on the AM nap to catch up. I don’t really want her to go to bed that much earlier as she typically in her crib by 7pm these days, but maybe I’ll move it up 10 mins or so on days when she’s had more active time before bed, or woke up earlier from her 1pm nap.

I feel most of the depression waning away, now. (Ha, as I typed that, the gardeners showed up and started blasting their noisy mowers, leaf blowers and weed whackers outside her room, but seeing that she’s already been sleeping 1:05 hrs, if this wakes her up it’ll save me the trouble of having to wake her so that she’ll hit her PM nap on time.) Things are easier on me as they go from my control to Allie’s own control. There’s less pressure on me to figure out what to do to help her out, and feeling like a failure if I can’t get the result. Pretty much all I’m responsible for in the day-to-day these days where Allie’s concerned is that she gets to nap when she needs it (9am & 1pm), and she eats well, and she’s safe.

Allie’s interest in milk is waning, and I didn’t pump at 5am for the first time on Saturday and Sunday, so my milk supply just from that has dipped dramatically. I hope the 8 gallon baggies in the freezer is enough to get her through her first year until we can switch her to cow’s milk, but I’m not too stressed about it, especially since she nurses just fine, still. She’s down to drinking 14.5 oz in bottles at home a day when I’m not here, and I’ve been pumping/storing 9 oz a day or less, but she nurses for all her milk intake when I’m here on weekends, and she still gets her daily morning and bedtime milk from nursing. I think my stockpile is fine even if I stop the 5am pumpings altogether, which I think I’ll do since I’ve been only getting 2.5 oz from that anyway after I’d stopped this past weekend, which is hardly worth the early risetime and the milk-storage and washing pump parts, etc.

Huh. This kid is still sleeping through the gardening noise, at 1:22 into her nap.

Yesterday, Allie was eating a powerful nutrition house of veggies for part of her dinner: baked beets with baked sweet potato and steamed variety of baby kale. You need only google the nutritional content of those three items to know she’s got more vitamins, amino acids, phytonutrients, antioxidants, blah blah in that little dish than many adults have all day.

Mr. W was feeding and said in a mocking tone to the stepdaughter to come see or try what Allie’s eating, and the junk food fan of the family’s response was that what Allie’s eating is “disgusting.”

Insulting someone else’s food is the second biggest peeve I have (the first is being mis-accused of something I’m innocent of; I will instantaneously fly off the handle, don’t even get me started). I don’t care if someone’s picky; picky is a personal preference (altho open-minded eaters are more fun to eat with). But making negative comments is a voluntary behavior.

There was a girl, Lauren, in my junior high school whom everyone picked on. She basically had no friends and I was new to the school and I didn’t know why she was so unpopular. She was a bit homely, but not everyone in junior high is going to dress like a rich girl. I made the effort to talk to her a few times and we laughed together, I enjoyed the conversation, and almost the moment I told someone I really liked her and think I’d like to be her friend, she enacted the peeve. I was eating a zhong zi at lunchtime, which we jokingly call a “Chinese tamale.” It is seasoned sticky rice with roasted pork, mushrooms, some other veggies, wrapped in a bamboo leaf and steamed, so that the fragrance of the bamboo is infused in the rice when the leaf pouch is opened. It had always been a favorite item of mine since very early childhood. Lauren walked by and pointed and said really loudly, “WHAT is THAT? Ew!” and laughed. I was instantly annoyed. Before I could even begin to tell her what it was, she went on, “You’re eating a LEAF! Hahaha! What are you, a rabbit? Haha!” She looked around to see if anyone else was going to join in to mock my lunch. I was kind of incredulous that she was trying to incite an anti-Cindy fiasco when I was her only friend. No one joined in, altho some looked at her rather blankly. I forgot what I said to her, but I’m sure it was something irrate. Her response was, “Well I’m SORRY, I’ve just never known anyone who eats GREEN LEAVES before! HAHA!” I was too disgusted with her to bother pointing out that apparently, no one she knows eats salads or leafy green vegetables. AND, you don’t eat the leaf part of my lunch. I made her go away instead. And I didn’t befriend her after all.

Michelle is a former “friend” on the social networking site who seemed cool and spunky and I’d really liked her, up until she started commenting on photos I’d post of stuff I was eating/drinking. I didn’t really know her; she was married to a guy I was close with back in the day, so when his wife friend-requested me, I’d accepted. They’d moved to Texas, and she eats like a Texan, apparently. Loves beef, potatoes, large portions, burgers, sodas, deep-fried foods, and lived on Taco Bell imitation meat when she was pregnant. I knew from a nutrition stand-point that she could do better in her food choices, but it wasn’t my place to say anything, so I only commented when I could be truthfully supportive in something. SHE, on the other hand, constantly commented on my photos of fresh carrot+ginger+beet juice, caramelized fig & onion tartlet, homemade mushroom & zucchini pizzas on spelt and flaxseed whole grain crust with stuff like, “That’s disgusting.” “OMG, I don’t think we can be friends anymore.” “Ew, gross.”

I don’t care if there are foods out there you would never touch with a 10-foot pole. Don’t touch them. I don’t care if you’re not adventurous, I don’t care if you’re picky, because it’s not my problem if you decide to miss out on all the great stuff out there. And some people have preferences for things I don’t. Some friends are texture-sensitive, others are flavor-sensitive, and some just plain ol’ love salty deep-fried stuff that I wouldn’t eat because I’m trying to be more aware of health. BUT…don’t go pointing at someone’s food while they’re eating, sneer, and make a judgment call that insults their food, makes them feel like a freak for eating something perfectly fine and healthy, because that only makes YOU look ignorant, closed-minded, picky, and rude! And when the food being picked on is a superfood, you look uneducated and unhealthy, too!

/rant

When the stepkidlet returned after 9 weeks in Europe this summer, she was full of stories of cultural differences in child-rearing. Her relatives in Spain, according to her, don’t have any bedtime for their toddler, and allows the little girl to stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning with the adults. The girl is hyper, fussy, and doesn’t nap well or at all. When mealtimes come, the girl is placed in her high chair, and then one adult immediately clasps the girl’s forehead and chin, forcing her mouth open, and the other adult shovels food in the girl’s mouth. The girl isn’t even given a chance to decide whether she will resist the food. It’s all force-fed immediately. This toddler is also fed soda in her bottle and eats junk food all the time. In telling us these Spanish habits she’s observed, the stepkidlet mentioned that Allie’s nanny Jayne had said that she doesn’t know how she would care for other babies if she decides to nanny professionally after Allie, because if the parents don’t have a healthy napping/eating/playing routine established for the kid, she isn’t sure she could handle it. Jayne calls Allie the exemplar baby, and considers herself spoiled by the regular, predictable breaks she gets when Allie takes her hour+ naps twice a day. (I’m pretty sure I’ve warned her that Allie will naturally drop the morning nap sometime in her first year.) The stepkidlet said thoughtfully that when she has kids of her own, she wants to raise them the way I’m raising Allie, which unfortunately means that her kids can’t be around her own mother, who raises children in the Spanish-culture way. I’d thought she was being facetious.

Today, the stepkidlet joined Mr. W, Allie, and me at the Lake. During Allie’s lunchtime there, the stepkidlet helped hold Allie and hand her the sippy cup while I fed a chicken and carrot puree, a purple yam puree, and red Bartlett pear puree for dessert. The stepkidlet was full of questions about the steps it took to make each vegetable item, and then she said she definitely wanted to follow my parenting style for her own future kids. I laughed and told her I’d be here, she doesn’t have to memorize everything now. She said again that she wants to learn this because she won’t be able to bring her kids around to her mom if she wants them to be raised healthily. We chatted about nutrition and early established healthy eating habits.

It didn’t hit me until earlier, while I was reading a parenting book about infant nutrition and having dinner on my own (Mr. W was playing Diablo III), that the stepkidlet paid me a HUGE compliment. They say that emulation is the sincerest form of flattery, but when that emulation is of one’s parenting style, I don’t think it gets bigger than that. Everything I put into raising Allie is the largest amount of effort I’d put into anything, with what feels like the most significant consequences. I’ve had many people roll their eyes at me and tell me I’m making things too hard on myself, I should stop breastfeeding and pumping and let her go on formula; I should make her adapt to my social routine and just let her crash in the car or in strollers for a few minutes here and there if she’s tired enough to do it; I should feed her commercial jarred babyfood to free up time for myself to do my own things. Yeah, a lot of what I’m doing is less than perfectly convenient, but I’ve known since pregnancy that if 100 hours of pain and effort yields even a smear of advantage in health, development, disease-prevention, etc. for Allie, those 100 hours are happily worthwhile spent for me, disproportionate to the advantage gained or not. I’ve had 35 years of doing whatever I wanted to pamper myself, I can give the next few to Allie to make sure she starts off on the right foot. I know this doesn’t guarantee that she won’t eat fast food here and there on her own, or loooove full-fat cupcakes, but I hope that she’ll also be healthy enough to eat fresh fruits and veggies and whole-grain superfoods and learn to surf with me from a young age. 🙂 And hike with her dad, and bike-ride with both her parents, without crying too much about the TV show she’s missing at home.

So yeah, when the stepkidlet observes my parenting, Allie’s behavior and habits, and observes the way other relatives raise their kids (her own mother included), and then on her own asks me to teach her what I’m doing so that she could pass that on to her own future kids, I think it’s worth a blog post. 😀

Stepkidlet: “I spy…an Allie Cat!”
Allie: “I wanna see an Allie Cat!”

I was just thinking around the time of my cousin Mark’s visit, while making plans with my cousins for Cousin Day Thursday, that I was really happy with the family members I have, because for such a big family (my paternal grandma has 6 kids, so many many extended family members locally), my cousins were great people who have come to my aid, been socially reliable, are responsible and good decent human beings, and are people whom I’d be proud to be friends with by choice had we not been family. And then a little voice in the back of my head had wondered whether in giving credit like this, that I was just asking for Murphy’s Law to strike.

Strike, it did. Right now, I’m irritated and hurt by a cousin who’s holding a grudge against another cousin’s mom and is therefore being hateful to others of us who aren’t even involved, and another cousin who very clearly left us out of a pretty significant event but who unfortunately felt the need to lie to me about it and then include me late. I don’t know how to handle stuff like this. I feel like I need a social advisor. The first cousin, I’m just going to leave alone and let her work out her own drama, and I’m not going to address how she upset me in her string of collateral damage. I’ll just get over it on my own in my own time. The second cousin…I don’t know. Am I supposed to attend even tho I know that within the 60 or so people invited, I didn’t make the cut, and the only reason I know about it now was because I’d unknowingly asked her about it?

And when the recipricol event occurs in the near future on my side, am I supposed to include her?

I was taken back to my childhood and teenager years, in which I’d constantly felt slighted by these relatives, because I’d always thought of them, given them what I could, supported them any way possible even if inconvenient or impractical for me to do so, but the same was not done for me. That was the story of my youth. Even in adulthood, I attended their events, photographed for them, and I can’t think of many events of mine they’d bothered showing up to, even tho they were always invited. My mom had told me that because I’m an only child, these things happen; they would always be in their private circle with their siblings with me on the outside. Well, Allie is MY only child, and I can see this occurring with her, too, where she will love her cousins and want to be around them as they are close in age, and want to do things with and for them, but they won’t think of her or include her when they do special things with and for each other. If Allie is like her mom, this will sting. She will be sensitive to it for a long time, maybe forever. Life is unfair. “I know, but why can’t it ever be unfair in my favor?” Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes) would say.

I think there’s a reason why my closer friends are die-hard friends of mine. They think that I’m an unusually good and considerate friend. I’ve heard this over and over again. I think there are a lot of people like “them” in the world, and less of people like “us.” Those of us who’ve been hurt, flaked on, treated selfishly and carelessly thrown aside by “them”s appreciate the “us”es when we find some. I hope Allie finds more “us”es to fill the special spots close to her heart.

“You can only control your own behavior to do things in the way others OUGHT to have done them,” my judge said this morning after his “How’s mini-minx?” unleashed a purging from me. He’s right. So despite how I FEEL about things, I will still DO what I should do, in a timely manner that is of the utmost consideration, just as I’d always done.

A couple of weekends ago, Allie and I went to a coworker’s son’s co-ed baby shower in San Clemente. Mr. W didn’t go, because he had to be on a liquid restriction for a medical procedure the next day, and he said he didn’t want to be around food that he couldn’t have. Mr. W participated to the extent that he picked out (and dressed Allie in) his favorite black-and-white polka-dot dress, perfect for the warm summer weather, he said, and while Allie and I went alone, Mr. W went to get a massage instead.

Soon after Allie and I got on the freeway, the entire strip was congested in stop-and-go traffic thanks to a 4-car accident and 4-5 California Highway Patrol cops surrounding the involved cars. Even though all the cars were pulled off the freeway already, all the gawkers big-time slowed the drive. Pretty early on in this mess, Allie started uncharacteristic fussing and whimpering in the backseat. “It’s okay, baby, we’ll get through this soon, you’re okay, you’re okay,” I’d kept saying to her, checking on her often from the rear view mirror, which reflects back from the baby mirror I’d put on the backseat so that I could see Allie’s rear-facing carseat. The freeway cleared for maaaaybe half a mile, then congested again thanks to an exit-ramp closure on the exact exit we were supposed to get off on. I had the traffic layer up on phone’s GPS, and all I could see was a giant streak of red for the duration of the trip. It looked like my map app was bleeding. Oh my gawd, this is the worst drive, ever, I thought more than once.

I decided to get off an exit early, get away from the congestion, and just take the surface streets to the party. My car’s nav couldn’t keep up and therefore didn’t redraw the directions in time, so I made a guess and turned after I exited. Of course I turned the wrong way. And since this was beachside streets, and near Pacific Coast Highway, and one-way split streets, and an intersection of freeways, the nav kept drawing and redrawing me in loops and circles no matter WHAT I did. Allie was screaming and crying through this. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, this is officially The Worst Drive Ever! Mommy’s so sorry!” I apologized repeatedly to the approaching-hysteria Allie.

After wasting 10+ minutes going in circles and being completely confused by the car navigation system’s constant redrawing of yet more loops and endless circles every time I turned (“Oh my gawd, you’re effing me. You have GOT to be effing me! Mommy’s so sorry, baby, this is the Worst Drive Ever! Please stop crying!”), I gave up and went back on the freeway at the exact point I’d gotten off. Allie quieted for a moment, but soon started crying and whimpering in the saddest way. Talking to her didn’t help, giving her her teething giraffe Sophie didn’t help. The crying turned into screams. I wasn’t used to this — this isn’t like her. Of course, most drives, I’m in the backseat entertaining her while Mr. W drove, so this is different for her, too.

Inch by slow agonizing inch in heavy traffic, I had to drive past the closed-due-to-construction exit that I was supposed to get off on, get off on the next exit a few miles away, turn around, and get back on the freeway the other way to get off on the correct exit going the opposite direction, all with my daughter freaking out in the back. After I exited, I was looking at the rear view mirror at her when suddenly, I saw a giant column of milk pour out of her mouth. As I watched, a second column spilled out, this time lasting even longer. Oh my God, oh my God, I thought to myself as I immediately pulled into the closest plaza and parked. Allie was quiet now, and looked glazed but calm. I plowed into the backseat, apologizing frantically for subjecting Allie to what is now historically THE WORST DRIVE, EVER-ever, grabbed a t-shirt I happened to have in the backseat and started mopping at her. She and Sophie were both covered and sitting in a pool of chunky half-digested breastmilk. I went through a mental panic trying to decide what to do. She needed to be bathed, she needed to be changed, she needed to be comforted, and she’s now probably hungry. But if I took her out here, I won’t be able to get her back in and we’d be stranded. We’re half a mile from my coworker’s house. Should I keep going? what kind of mother would I be if I took my sick baby to a party covered in vomit? I should just go home. But that would mean turning right around, and putting Allie through another drive through traffic when she’s already so unhappy. Should I take her to a hospital? What if she’s actually really SICK? She’d never vomited before like this.

I had called Mr. W repeatedly but of course he didn’t pick up his phone. I’d also called my coworker and she didn’t pick up, either. I looked at Allie. Allie looked at me. The phone rang. I picked it up and my coworker said, “Hi! Where are you?” I blubbered and poured my story in all its panicky glory into the phone. “No, no, don’t go home. Bring her here. We’ll clean her up and give her a break from the car.” That sounded good, so I left Allie and got back in the front seat. The poor girl started WAILING, her lower chin shaking, as if she couldn’t understand how I could abandon her in her time of need like this.

As soon as I got her to my coworker’s house, she was fine. My coworker was outside to direct us into her driveway (where she’d saved a spot for us to park), some other coworkers and retired coworkers excited to see Allie came out to greet us, and all I could do was apologize and then rush the baby into the master bathroom. My WONDERFUL coworker and I undressed Allie down to her diaper, and I cleaned Allie up while my coworker hand-washed Allie’s little dress and removed components of vomit-soaked carseat, threw those in the washing machine and put the carseat itself outside to dry. Digging through the diaper bag, I was dismayed to find that the only extra emergency clothes was a long-sleeved sleep-and-play with feet that likely was too small for her, and it was a 90-degree day. That, and a beanie cap. =P Luckily, it was warm in the house so we just left Allie as-is and she was instantly in a GREAT mood once she was no longer sticky. I fed her some pureed zucchini & rice, and papaya that I’d brought. She ate well, then played well in the living room among all the strangers, crawling around and pointing at balloons, chewing on party favors, talking to people, all while wearing a diaper, her bib, and her little canvas sneakers.

Allie sat quietly on the drive home (which took less than half the time I’d spent to get to the party, now that the freeways were clear), looking out the window, playing here and there with her toys in the car, and fell asleep the last 5 minutes of the drive, and still slept through the night. We theorized that Allie got carsick probably just from the combination of heat, being alone back there, being in my little sports car instead of her daddy’s car that she’s used to, and dealing with all the stop-and-gos and turns and u-turns that I was making.

I learned something that day. The lesson is to ALWAYS LISTEN TO KYDEN. You’d think I would’ve learned from his experience, especially when looking in the comments, it appears I’d predicted this day would come way back in February, but nooo. Speaking of failing to learn from experience, Allie’s diaper bag still contains no updated clothes, now that I think about it.

***
Addendum, 11pm.
While discussing the above event with Flip Flop Girl (Kyden’s mommy) online just now:

me: I usually go super-calm during a disaster-type situation as my brain automatically goes into task-mode, damage-control, etc., but now I know that when it comes to my baby, my brain turns to instant oatmeal.
flip flop girl: that’s really surprising
i would think that BECAUSE it’s your baby that you’d have to be the strong, calm one in that situation
me: It surprised and dismayed me, too. Now I know I need a trunk monkey who would come out during those times and slap me.
flip flop girl: hahaha
or better yet
he can take care of everything for you
that’s much better than getting slapped, right?
me: oh, I guess while I’m wishing for things, I may as well wish for that, instead.

Allie’s going through a mommy preference stage. It doesn’t mean she’s unwilling to be with others, just that if she were playing with Mr. W, or even Jayne, if I were to walk by she’d get a big smile on her face and stop what she’s doing to come to me. If she were standing or being held, she’d reach out to me and lean in. If I don’t pick her up or go to her, she’d start complaining, and if I still don’t pick her up, she’d give a “Why hast thou forsaken me?” wail. Mr. W doesn’t seem to be jealous or to mind at all, except when I can’t pick her up and she’s now fussing and refusing to go back to whatever she was doing. “We were doing FINE until you walked by!” he’d complain. If I can’t go join them (i.e., if I had some chore I had to do), I would usually try to sneak quietly by them while Allie had her back turned. This mommy preference thing usually happens when she’s getting a bit tired, such as near naptime or bedtime. I think she associates me with comfort, whereas she associates Mr. W with play.

As for what I think about this inconvenient mommy preference thing… I feel like the girl who’s always picked last for a team sport suddenly and unexpected gets picked first, and not just by a random team captain, but by the most beautiful, beloved, magical, important person that could pay attention to me, and I’m touched, flattered, and feeling like I must surely be dreaming. SHE loves ME? SHE *wants* to be with me? She chooses me out of all the people in the room? What did I do to deserve such devotion?

The husband is very insensitive with his words (both in giving and receiving) and I’m very sensitive with and to words. A lot of the stuff that he says that I bristle at, in the past he has told me he doesn’t mean and that I’m “supposed” to ignore them. But words have meaning to me and I take them seriously; in reverse, I try to use my words meaningfully with as much integrity behind them as I can muster. In receiving words, Mr. W is less affected, doesn’t find them particularly memorable (even when I want them to be), so he delivers his words with the same little intent behind them.

If I were to say to him something like, “You ALWAYS do this,” which he often says to me and would upset me in its exaggeration and cause me to fly into explicit examples to prove its untruthfulness, he would just shrug it off.

Sometimes he makes an observation or comment using words that I find inflammatory, so I’m inflamed. Sometimes I tell him something that I really mean and he blows it off, scoffs and pretty much calls me a liar.

He wishes I were less sensitive; I wish he were more sensitive.

I don’t know what to do about this discrepancy. Mr. W’s solution is that we just shouldn’t talk to each other.

Hubby is planning for retirement. I’ve been planning, too, but in an unspecific, nebulous, not-thinking-about-it sort of way. My retirement accounts and investments are in order and have been growing since I was 23, the Roth-IRA was begun when I turned 21, the real estate is in place with good renters in it, and the 15-year mortgage on it will be paid off in less than 6 years. But in hubby’s planning, he knows stuff like where he wants to live when he retires (Ashland, Oregon or the Big Island, Hawaii), what he wants to do when he retires (travel whenever possible for weeks or months at a time, internationally, depending on Allie’s school year calendar), and most importantly, WHEN he retires (in 5 years). This is troubling for me because this means he also knows what I’D be doing when he retires — at least, what he wants me to do. As I would be too young to retire and would be ineligible to draw from my retirement benefits, he wants me to simply quit.

This is many women’s Cinderella dream: to meet a handsome man, fall in love, have a family, and have him say, “I will take care of you financially. Just quit and travel with me and our child.”

I’m petrified. I have been financially independent since college and part of my sense of self, freedom and security are based on having my own money. I like not having to answer to anyone else how I spend, save, or invest my money and generally, I haven’t had any problems. I’m not irresponsible with money, and I like that I reap my own rewards that way. I don’t have to be affected by how others, even my husband, spend their money, and that’s a huge stress-saver in a marriage. To lose my job means to become dependent on my husband’s retirement income. He keeps saying that it’s “our” money and not “his” money, but in my head, I see myself as a helpless burden with her hand out for an allowance, sheepishly taking money she didn’t earn and would be afraid to spend without express permission for each item to be purchased. I feel small and powerless. Unentitled to an opinion on purchases or to have preferences. I feel like I should be calling him “sir” and hoping to please him so he doesn’t fire me or find a younger hotter model of companion and put me out on the streets. *cry*

Mr. W: Where should we go on vacation this year?
Me: Well, maybe —
Mr. W: The airfare to Afghanistan is at a nice low rate right now. Let’s stay there for a month during Allie’s summer vacation.
Me: Yes, sir.
*cry*

I know, I know, it’s not that bad. We’ll get to take Allie on educational trips, she gets to experience different environments which will open her eyes and increase her tolerances to worldly cuisines, cultures, and people. We’ll make sure she’s fit and ready to do the nice physical excursions, too, like hiking to the nice vistas, rafting through the rivers, and, just for me, running with mom at Disney races and maybe even a Boot Camp Challenge or two. We’ll both get to be around for all of Allie’s school events and activities, or extracurricular stuff. We can move to places with excellent education systems and not be tied down by things like commutes to jobs. I’m trying to get my head wrapped around this to be okay with the major upheaval coming.

A lot can happen or change in 5 years, I know. But I know my parents aren’t going to be happy that their only child is moving their only grandchild out-of-state. They’re already unhappy that we live almost 40 miles away from them. Ugh.

Rebecca said something the other day about making and reaching for your dreams. “Think about what you would do if money were no object. Make a list. And then make those things your intention. The universe will pick up on it.” I guess my nebulous “retirement” will have to now take form.

P.S. Did I say that Mr. W can’t wait and talks about retirement daily, and contrasted with his retirement dreams, current daily life drives him crazy? He’s eager to not have to go to work anymore, whereas for me, I feel like I’d be abandoning my judge. =/ I’m also nervous that losing my salary would kill our safety net and if Mr. W has an unforeseen expense come up, I wouldn’t be able to spot him like I currently am able to during property tax or insurance due dates. I guess that’s why we’re consulting with a financial advisor right now. I need a realistic picture of when we can afford for me to quit. *biting fingernails*

I feel like I constantly have to defend or justify my parenting choices and philosophy from people who feel I should or shouldn’t do what I’m not or am doing. It’s like the epidural thing — just because I had my reasons in not using it doesn’t mean that I’m telling others to choose my choices or that my choices are better than their choices; they were MY choices for ME given what I feel is right for my personal situations, and I feel like others who made different choices for themselves get defensive and bash me over the head and tell me my choices are wrong or stupid. One that I’d supported on all her decisions even if I wouldn’t have made those decisions for myself once said about one of my decisions, “How could you choose to do that? You’re crazy.” I was so peeved. I don’t tell THEM that about THEIR choices. Every decision I make is what I believe to be in Allie’s best interest, even if it IS a little to my own detriment, but I’m okay with that, and I’ve chosen that with full knowledge.

Okay, so I’m diligent in only going out AROUND Allie’s naptimes and getting her home in time for her naps, so I miss out either partially or completely on parties and events that take place during or thru her naps. This is temporary, and it’s to help her become a better rested, healthier, and happier baby. I see it in her. She IS healthy. She IS happy. And believe me, I’ve also seen when she was not well-rested, not happy, cuz she’s very loud when that’s the situation. I can not handle that level of stress anymore. Even hearing a random baby’s wail at work almost sends me spiraling into an anxiety attack.

Ever since the pediatrician suggested we put Allie straight down into her crib for naps now, Jayne’s done it at my direction, and Allie has even seemed to prefer NOT to be held and soothed to sleep. The past 2 days, that’s 4 consecutive naps, she’s leaned toward her crib (I’ve experienced this last weekend, as well) during her soothing period as if she’s asking to go straight in. Jayne reports that after putting Allie in the crib, Jayne leaves immediately and Allie complains or cries for less than a minute before she starts playing a bit by herself, and within 10-15 minutes, she lays down and goes to sleep. These naps have been between 75 minutes to 90 minutes each. To me, that means Allie is confident and mature enough to recognize and obey what her body needs without parental assistance or insistence. It was the ultimate nap goal for me — a baby so used to getting her sleep needs taken care of that she EXPECTS and WANTS to rest. Even Jayne remarks on the difference between happy rested Allie and tired cranky Allie. And the medical professionals are certainly happy with me. And I can’t even remember the last time Allie woke up in the middle of the night and needed to be tended to; if she wakes up with a wail here or there (probably from a nightmare), give her a minute and she’ll settle right back to sleep. (Knowing that about her, if she wakes up crying dramatically or continuously, I’ll know that she needs to be attended to, as opposed to waking up and calling for me cuz she wants to play or wants me to respond due to a night-waking habit.)

I’m hoping I have as much success this weekend. Regardless, we have plans to attend Claudio’s girlfriend Jenny’s birthday party after Allie wakes up from her 2nd nap and we’ll make sure we’re home in time to go thru her bedtime routine before bed. That doesn’t leave a lot of time between 4p, when the event starts, and 6p, but that’s okay by me. Allie’s needs come first, and it’s a good compromise. She’ll finally get to meet Uncle Andrae this weekend, too.

My email inbox opened today on really old stuff from 2006. Seeing some interesting subject lines, I opened a few old emails and smiled, frowned, and mused in reading some of my history with friends from over half a decade ago. I even re-sent some to the friends on the email, just for kicks. “Hey, remember his? How things have changed.” I’ve always thought I had a more-than-decent memory, but there were some teaser emails I have no impression of, like one between me and college roommie Diana where we were about to get into something juicy and instead of writing it, she wrote, “Call me and I’ll tell you,” and then there were 3-4 follow-up emails arranging for the call, making sure we were both available, what numbers to call on, and then…nothing. WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT DID SHE TELL ME? WAS IT ABOUT A BOY? I DON’T REMEMBER AND I WANNA KNOW! It was most likely about a boy.

And then I saw an email from a guy who was my boss for something like a few months before he’d decided to leave the County and go into private industry. He was nice to me, and had defended me against some workplace unfairness he’d perceived and fought a battle that I really wasn’t even planning to fight myself. He made me feel a little weird, a little uncomfortable sometimes. Anyway, the email from him was just one line, which appeared to be in Latin. It looked like nonsensical spam or the remnants of a virus, when someone’s email gets hacked. But the sign-off with his first name made me think maybe it wasn’t spam. Spam doesn’t sign off. I *think* that back in ’06, I may have thought it was spam and not responded, because there’s no indication on that email that it was ever replied to. Anyhow, the one line is:

Is eram meus vicis ut leave.Hope totus est puteus vobis.

I ran the line through Google translator. It came back with “It was my time to leave.Hope all is well with you.” I guess it wasn’t spam. Why did he feel the need to write that all cryptically in Latin? It was from his personal email, not work email. Maybe I’d been right to feel uncomfortable about him.