On Call: A Troubling Start to the Weekend

So this weekend Absurdist Lover is on call at his job. This means that he gets disturbed all the time for problems as lame as printer jams. Ugh. His being on call every six weeks or so is absolutely the worst part of the job for him -- and for the whole family because it means that I have to be prepared for him to have to leave at any point. Double ugh.

So last night, Tot decided he wanted to go to sleep at 7pm. This from the late-night toddler. (Speaking of: he's two months away from three years old! I can't believe it. Surely he deserves a better moniker than Tot, now that most sources seem to call him a "preschooler." Am working on it and thinking about whether he and AL should have monikers that really fit them more than just their relationship to me, but I digress and still don't know what I think about it all.) But I am not one to argue against his sleeping. So he slept. I thought it would be a good time to start freezing the bushel of green beans I ordered from my CSA. A bushel. I had no idea how much a bushel really is. It's a lot. So I took a nap, then got up and made a start around 11pm. AL was gone on his first visit to work at that point. Of course, Tot woke up at 2am and stayed up until 5am, so that nap I took that robbed me of some green bean time ended up being totally inspired. I went to bed at 6:30am. Tot woke up at 9:30am, bright-eyed and shiny-faced. At that point, AL was already gone, having been called in for the second time since he started being on call at 7pm. (The first notice of the first call-in was at 8:30. The darn place can't survive without him for even two hours!)

All this to say: his being on call sucks for the whole family (no going to any of the fairs going on right now because it would suck to waste the entry price); Tot was on some weirdo schedule yesterday, though he's fine today, though I'm quite tired because of it; the upshot of all this is that I managed to freeze about or at least almost half a bushel of green beans in the wee hours last night.

I did take a picture of the now half-full bushel box, which I'll post later. (I haven't downloaded photos to my computer for ever. Though not a big deal, of course, it seems like a big job for some reason. Perhaps everything seems big now.

Oh, gotta go. Tot wants to take a nap. More later.

***A half hour later***

False alarm. He decided he wanted to look at a particular page of The Cat in the Hat, which then meant that we went through all the subsequent pages (not reading, but he likes to flip the page and ask, "What happened?" and then I try to help him figure out what happened based on the pictures). When he got to the last page of the book, the one with just white on it, he did what he did last night: asked about coloring the pages. And I said no, that we don't color our books, only our papers. And then he promptly got up and ran to his desk so he could color pictures of trains. He loves trains and asks daily about going to the train tracks. He also loves cars, buses, and motorcycles. And most recently, probably because his Montessori teacher is an artist herself, painting. Actually his paintings have really nice composition. We hung them up. I like them, even apart from being his mom.

I'm sure I should get started on those green beans, but my energy level has dipped. (I never do well when he teases me that he's going to take a nap and then doesn't.) He's busy with AL talking about "orange" and "red." So cute. I'm going to go and grab what family goodness is available to me this weekend. Talk to you later, most likely about green beans, transplanting container garden vegetables and herbs, and the bounty of local organic food in this region. (Not about work, though I'm up to my navel in summer quarter. I really don't like being so far off the normal academic schedule. It's very alienating. So instead of gearing up for the fall semester, like so many of you with that familiar mix of excitement for it all to start again and dread that summer is over, I'm deep in midterms. Next academic year will be better, I've been promised. I swear I put it on the first draft of my annual report that keeping myself from complaining about my schedule was a part of my departmental service.)

Happy fall semester, everyone! May all your syllabi write themselves and your copying get done!

Grading

Must grade. Am being very virtuous and getting started on it as soon as I can. Have six projects to do that have taken me 30 minutes each in the past, but I'm hopeful I can reduce this time. Wish me luck.

***

11:35am

I've finished three projects. There is no way to fit the work into 20 minutes, and even though I still have three projects to grade before I can consider myself done for the day, I MUST take a break. Most of these projects can only be described by the term "hot mess." Almost all of these students are very early freshman students (as in they graduated from high school about three minutes ago) and are difficult in the usual ways of such young students. I used to really enjoy teaching such young students and being involved in their "transition to the university," but I don't much enjoy teaching this class to these students at this university. Part of it is the focus of the course, which in many ways I support. In other ways, I think the focus does a disservice to colleagues who will have these students down the line. Because of this concern, I may be spearheading a department project on a related topic.

Oh, I wish I were closer to done with grading for the day. Tot is at daycare instead of Montessori, so I can take extra time today if needed. (His Montessori school is closed for a couple weeks before opening for the official fall school year, which I finally managed to get Tot registered for and everything: money has been an important recent concern with moving to a house and everything.)

Oh it's simply been forever since I blogged. Mostly this is because with Tot in Montessori my teaching days are more frequent but shorter, so I really have to use all the time I have. I have far less free time, it seems. (I feel quite behind on work things, especially the chapter I have due.) A big part of this is Tot being more of a handful. Part of this is my recent obsession with Big Project, which I'll tell y'all about some other time. And part of this is my pact with myself that when I'm home with the family, I'm really with the family, cooking and doing home things.

I've been cooking a lot because we're getting beautiful bountiful vegetables from our CSA. Have I mentioned my oodles of containers of plants? (And more coming because I just ordered seeds from Seed Savers Exchange to attempt a fall harvest. There's a raised bed in the backyard that I hope and pray has not been treated with RoundUp and other noxious chemicals that have been linked to birth defects. I haven't yet decided whether to experiment with it yet, though of course I'd build it up by putting in new organic soil.)

My favorite things in my life -- besides my family -- center on food and farming: getting cheese through this ordering system for local farmers I'm experimenting with; going to the New City farmer's market to get organic sweets (last week: blueberry crumble pie -- does it get any better than that? I think not); working on my own garden for a fall harvest; cooking and adding new recipes to my recipe book. I'm considering taking a correspondence course on medicinal herbs in the fall as well. Of course, I'd want to grow some herbs as well.

But for now, I've got three projects to grade. See you on the flip side.

***
2:15

I'm done. And thank goodness because that last one was a complete fail. I did manage to read one today that was pretty much okay. Now I've got to do something else, because jumping right into scholarship? Not gonna happen. I need a break before I can even think of working out. GAH!

Unexpected Day Off

So we're having a terrible storm that has robbed Tot's Montessori of power, which means though I have a complete day of teaching along with a department meeting nestled between my two classes today, I'm home with Tot. So many things are power struggles with him lately that I'm not as overjoyed for the unexpected day with him as I wish I were and, of course, feel a bit bad about that. (Lest y'all think that we're terribly traditional in the Absurdist Household, Absurdist Lover did offer to stay home, but he's got this huge deadline at work tomorrow, and I'd rather that he just go and deal with the mountain of work he's got rather than let the stress mount even more. For me, getting behind in my classes by cancelling today is just an annoying and unwelcome wrinkle.)

(Another power struggle over whether putting one's feet on playing cards one has just dropped is a good idea. We do a lot of threatening time in his playpen these days. It's easy to feel like a terrible parent. I lose my temper often.)

But the upshot is that I can blog. Unfortunately, I feel like I have little to say. I'm teaching, doing service work (wow: it would be great if I could make some headway on this report I meant to start but didn't yesterday), and trying to work on the major revision for Article Slightly Outside My Field. For that article, I've been putting some very odd things together, but I knew before that there were some Australian researchers putting them together too. Now I see they have a book due out next year. I can't figure out whether I feel bad about being scooped or relieved to know that I'll be able to simply gesture to them as evidence that putting these things together does make sense. I wish the book were out now. But as much as I went nuts researching and ILL-ing articles that I could find from these researchers, this aspect of things is a small part of the overall argument. (That is, this is theory while the main thrust is application.) Why is it so easy to get all obsessed about one difficult part of one's argument rather than focusing on that which is going to get the most pages? Of course, there's lack of self-esteem and imposter syndrome in the mix, but is it also, in this case, that I'm more interested in delineating that theoretical argument than the main thrust of the chapter, which includes both application (which is okay) but also a specific kind of analysis that I'm not really thrilled about doing?

It's foolish to think I'm really going to get a lot done today, when keeping Tot out of trouble is already a major never-ending project. If anyone has great ideas about specific indoor activities to do with an extremely active tot of 2-3/4 years, please let me know.

Where Am I?

I am in a new house which is still only half-unpacked, but liveable enough, and I'm too exhausted to care that many things are still in boxes. Tomorrow begins my second week of summer teaching. I also have a couple reports to write and a really strong revision to do. Tomorrow, Tot begins his third week of Montessori, which he may be a little young for at this point. He is also testing boundaries all the time and making ample use of his favorite word "no." He lies down and refuses to budge in all sorts of places, and we have to threaten him with his playpen all the time. Taking care of Tot is really exhausting. And on top of everything, I feel, as is usual when I teach in the summer, completely separate and alien from the academic world that very wisely has packed up its ivy-covered ivory towers and gone to the beach. I want to be at the beach too (but only metaphorically). I can't make myself read the Amanda Cross mystery I have because it's too academic and sardonic and feels too much like work. I'm teaching a class and engaged in some activities that require me to be very active and forthright, to push myself out there, to advocate, to be present and articulate. All I want to do at this point is read something mysterious and magical and watery where things can be understood yet remain unsaid. I want to watch Practical Magic over and over again. I want to investigate the divine feminine principle, amid all this assertive masculine doing energy. I want a vacation where my only duty is to vegetative life. I'm thinking a lot about religion, about how Judaism tugs at me, though my life would be so much easier if I became a Christian, but I don't feel it the same, how I don't know why Judaism should be so important to me since I'm not Jewish by Jewish law and the family nostalgia shouldn't work on me because 1) they weren't that Jewish in terms of religion, except when my mother converted; 2) whatever good points my family of origin had, I don't have nostalgia for them. How my first religion really was astrology and wicca, coral rings of protection, and that calls to me too. (Maybe it's just ritual that is tugging at me?)

In short, I have a lot going on and a lot of other stuff going on in my head, but it's a blur, a whirlwind, a summer thunderstorm threatening hail. I want to back to writing creatively, discover a new way of being a writer in this very busy life. Do I wake up an hour early like so many dedicated women writers? The danger with this is that I get so little sleep as it is. My schedule is somewhat flexible, surely I should be able to sneak in some writing? But then I get ambitious. If I can get some writing published, it might count for tenure. Just like with crochet: it's not enough to just enjoy the doing of it, suddenly I have to crochet all my Christmas presents. Chanukah presents. Solstice presents. (Solstice is the one that really makes more sense to me, though Christmas makes more sense to me now that I have a child.)

I'm rambling. I'm also dozing off. I just wanted to say to hi to y'all. I'm enjoying reading y'all's blogs during the few minutes I have between activities. I hope things will balance out soon, and I can write a blogpost that makes sense. Have enough alone time so that the talk in my head makes sense to me.

Grumble Grumble Grumble

It looks like Tot has pinkeye. Which means that all plans for the week, including grading and moving books into my office, getting together with a colleague for a good end-of-year grumble session complete with drinks, and, on Friday, moving stuff into the new house, all of which depended on daycare, are pretty much dashed. Grumble grumble grumble. And Tot woke up in the night and came into our bed, natch, so I'm so frigging exhausted. Family bed be damned, but I can't sleep with Tot stretching and turning and hogging the bed.

I wish I had some eternally patient single friend who would come over and hang out with me while I'm in pinkeye jail with Tot. Luckily, pinkeye has not stopped Tot from happily playing with his cars. That he's not completely miserable is the only saving grace of the whole thing. Instead, I'm the one who's miserable, realizing the serious limitations of coffee. I gave up the Coffee Corporation a while back, trying to save my stomach and money. Now I see the error of my ways.

It would be a whole lot easier to be blase about the whole disarrangement of a week's worth of plans if I had gotten enough sleep. Sigh.

I have to call Tot's daycare, my dental appointment, and his doctor for an appointment. Impossible feats, I tell you. So.frigging.tired.

Update 2:42 pm

Tot was nearly down for a nap when I jostled him too much and though he tried to go back to sleep, now he's up and driving me crazy (throwing rather than rolling his damn ball -- I can't believe that more people don't go insane with toddlers -- how many frigging times do I have to say that he can't throw it but only roll it, and I know he knows what I mean -- grrr).

And now the damn landlord of our new rental is driving me insane with hir antics and crap. I'm really beginning to think that this is the most ill-fated move ever for a variety of reasons. I'm beginning to hate everyone right now, except the sweet blogger-friends who've left me comments. (And, of course, at just this moment, Tot throws another damn ball. I'm just going to melt down, people. Just like the Wicked Witch of the West. Please. Throw water on me.)

Playing Catch Up

My dear friends, I'm sorry I haven't blogged recently. There's been a ton going on. In the words of Inigo Montoya, "let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

• I had terrible tooth pain for weeks, finally went to the dentist, waited for three more weeks for my appointment to roll around, and then had a root canal. Icky. I feel diseased. (And I have not yet had the usual cleaning and diagnostics to tell me what other nightmares await me in the teeth realm.) I'm still on pain meds. It absolutely ruined our weekend last weekend along with. . .
• AL has been on call at work. It's over now, as of today. But he's gotten up in the middle of the night so many times I swear he works more at night than during the day. This made root canal weekend even worse because he was too tired to take care of Tot. Even still, he tried. We managed.
• My sister fell off a horse and actually fractured her spine. She had to have spinal fusion surgery. She's at home now, trying to manage the pain. She's going to have to wear a brace for six months. It's awful. Which has also led to. . .
• My mother came back up from the deep to send me text messages about my sister. The latest ones are all about whether I know whether my sister knows the recipe for my late grandmother's "Miracle Soup." As if I would know. As if my sister, at home alone because her husband and kids are at work and school, respectively, should be making herself soup rather than having someone else make her soup. As if my grandmother's soup was anything more than Whole Foods vegetable soup powder with an awful lot of vegetables in it. Finally, I stopped texting back about that one because it's just so stupid. I really liked it much better when my mother wasn't talking to me for reasons I'm not sure about but can guess. I'm sick of the hot and cold with my mother. It finally occurred to me, because I'm incredibly slow, that not only have I been putting up with the same kind of BS from my mother for my nearly 40 years, but that I'm tired of it and have no more energy to invest in relationships that merely drive me crazy and don't pay off in any way; in fact, I'd be stupid to invest what little time I have that way. As AL said so well, our lives are so busy with full-time jobs and an active toddler. My mother could be a support, something that adds to our lives. Instead she takes away. I'm no longer going to invest time in the minus column of my life.
  
• I've decided to start Tot in Montessori in July. We've observed the class, we've talked with the director, and I, at least, am looking forward to it. Tot, on the other hand, seems to love his current daycare, though all I have to do to firm up my resolve is to come in at snack time when some deranged parents think it's a good idea to pump their kids full of donuts and cupcakes. (Sorry if this is insulting to you, dear readers. AL says I shouldn't judge. But really: sugar, fat, and likely trans fats and GMO. Oh, and I realize this is a trivial consideration: no actual nutrition for kids' growing bodies. I'm not against the occasional fabulous dessert, but donuts from a coffee place as a kid's everyday snack? Bringing in a giant cupcake snack for a whole room full of early preschoolers? I feel especially responsible for bringing tasty and healthy snacks when it's my turn to feed the entire room. Am I the only one?)
  
• Tot has started asking to be with "other kids." Which means that I'm concerned that this long weekend isn't going to be as fun as it should be. AL and I are determined to do nice things for ourselves beyond the usual laundry, dishes, trash. Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to rain all weekend, when the things we want to do involve being outdoors and eating outdoors. We might try to take Tot to a restaurant, something we've really stopped doing because he is so active.
  
• The Farmer's Market started up last weekend. Thank God and Hir's wee angels. It was rained out the day it was supposed to start.
• I hate the quarter system and especially my Uni's academic calendar that makes me way off of every other academic's calendar. The good news is that I have today off, though it's only week 8. Which means. . .
• That today is the day I.simply.must.make.amazing.progress.on.the.article I now owe to Grad School Colleague and will soon owe to a professional workshop thing I'm scheduled to go to (but can't quite imagine since I have to leave AL and Tot here) AND to my regularly scheduled writing group.
  

I've decided that there is no earthly reason why I can't write two articles per year if I just put in the time. I've been doing other really useful reflection, like that I really do feel like teaching, which I value amazingly, does get in the way of my regular work on my scholarship and I find that annoying. Which is how I've come to realize that while I really love teaching and would love to be in a place where I'd be able to teach courses across the range of an English generalist, I'd not like the heavy load, unless class size were really limited. So while there are lots of things I don't like about my job -- the calendar, the lack of majors, the focus of my bread-and-butter teaching -- the teaching load is certainly one of the amazing perks. Another thing I really dislike is the lack of an academic community where people discuss things. Now I realize there are plenty of big and small departments that for whatever reason don't foster a sense of intellectual community. Mine certainly does not have intellectual community because most of the people in my department live elsewhere and commute in (which amazes me in the winter, but I grew up in a place where people start driving wonky in the rain -- snow would be impossible). I need to go seek it out -- at conferences and other schools around the state.

But you'll notice that none of this is helping me get my article done. So here's what I'm going to do:

• I'm not going to panic.
• I'm going to take my outline and dump in the various discussions I've been working on into it. Had to do a course correction, but done!
  
• Then I'm going to print it out and do some handwritten revision. Thwarted! Our printer is so close to out of ink that it's giving me very choppy unreadable pages. GAH! Okay, I could go to work or I could go to my friendly nearby Staples. Since I have laundry in the communal laundry room, I suppose Staples is the smart choice. Done.
  
• My goal is that I'm going to get one of the five sections of the piece written through today. Done.
  
• But before I do any of that, I'm going to read that blogpost from the day I calmly wrote that article. I have done it before, and I can do it again. But I just need to remind myself how. Done.
  

I hope y'all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! And if you're already done with your academic year, well, remember that there are those of us who are not so fortunate. It is your responsibility to have more fun, read for pleasure, be nice to yourself, and take more soothing naps and, above all, as my professor grandfather said and AL last night quoted: don't should yourself to death.

ETA: I just figured out that my organization is not going to work because, as always, my points are intertwined with one another. Instead I'm going to group the discussions together differently, which of course means I've spent some of my productive time on important discoveries that don't yield actual pages. Sigh. Back to it.

A Whole New Me: Organizing

Inspired by my new schedule (with Tot in daycare another day per week) and feeling like I really need to take control over my life and my job (therapy is probably helping with this a lot), I've been doing things that really I should've done a long time ago, like organizing my time.

Taking a hard look at the work I need to get done each week, including my seemingly never-ending service commitments, helped me to say no to a campus-wide venture that, while important in its own way, would probably not do much for me tenure-wise. (It's more of a staff project than a faculty project.) But more important than any tenure issue in my decision was really putting Much Needed Article on the front burner and thinking carefully about how many hours a week I need to get it out in the next few months. I also need other things: I emailed a grad school friend I used to work with a lot and begged zie to please read it. So now I have a deadline of when I need to turn it in (though really this friend would look at it if it were in pieces -- that's how good of a respondent zie is) and a good reader in my field who is well-acquainted with my work and central questions (unlike anyone around SU). And it turns out that the workshop that I'm going to at the end of June also wants us to circulate papers, so I'm hoping to get it to Grad School Colleague (who deserves a better moniker) in time for me to revise it and turn it around for the workshop. I don't know whether that will really happen, but feeling like I have an immediate and real audience for this piece will, I think, help me get it out the door.

So I've organized my time and days, and this is my first research-focused day. I've been looking forward to it all weekend, when I spent some late-night time making notes for this article. Unfortunately, there is a yoga class in about a half hour that I really need to take as well. AL got me a yoga pass two months ago now because that's what I wanted for Valentine's Day. But then I got that back sprain and didn't go all this time. The last time I was at the doctor's, she said that if I am not going to take the muscle relaxers because I'm still breastfeeding, then I need stretch a lot. What is yoga if not stretching a lot? So I'm going to break up my day by going to yoga, which is also incredibly good for me. (Though my back feels terrible -- stupid bed.) And good for my brain.

I've been in a terrible mood, one that makes me suspect that I'm depressed. I'm back to trying to work with Write Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks (though I'm going to try to do it about 8 weeks), and there was a blurb in there about depression and how the problem is that once you're depressed, no matter what the cause, you begin to react to every situation as if it's a stressful one. I certainly have been like that recently. Especially at work. Not only at work though. Luckily I have therapy later in the afternoon and can focus on all that there.

It's amazing to me how long it's been since I really tried to organize my time. Since I had Tot, I've felt like my life is running me, not like I actually run my life. This is silly because I've read Academic Self many times and the author extols the virtues of organizing and planning -- especially to keep productive and prevent burnout. Obviously, I haven't read this book in the last couple years. Just having a plan for my week (which has to be adjusted weekly because I've never been able to keep a schedule unless it's super-flexible) makes me feel more on top of it all, more like a professional. Not someone running from class to meeting to service deadline.

Another Day. . .

after another night of Tot's restless nursing. I've felt a lot of external pressure lately to wean the Tot (from doctors and such), but ultimately had decided not to. Right now, I wonder. Though I guess that if he woke up in the middle of the night and I did not nurse him, I'd have to be much more awake than I need to be when nursing. On the other hand, I don't get a lot of sleep flipping us over from side to side either. Anyway.

Another day in which I discover another big lack of communication around a specific issue that absolutely affects students. It's one of those classic maneuvers actually, one of those that shows how faculty members do not understand how our classes build on one another, how faculty members treat their classes as if they are all one-offs, accountable to no one. No wonder students have such a fragmented experience. No wonder knowledge seems so disparate to students. Students are rarely encouraged to put it all together in a whole. Apart from the cognitive dissonance that this causes, other problems emerge with the bureaucratization of the mind, each piece in its own compartment. We're like that too, each faculty member in hir cell. It's not good. Not good.

Some of this is because of my department specifically. But I've also seen this in other departments, though, perhaps, less so because of majors and things. Sigh.

This week is my "spring break," as much as one exists on the quarter system when one still has all one's Winter grading splayed out over one's desk while syllabi are calling forth from the World of Possibility to be birthed into the world by next week, when we'll do it all again. I hate the transition from Winter to Spring quarter. I really do.

But today I have other fish to fry. Tot's eye doctor has prescribed patching, so I'm going in search of pirate hats and patches to make it all more fun for Tot (who is currently being annoying by taking apart the Hot Wheels track I just put back together). Any ideas of where to find pirate patches and hats during non-Halloween times? I figure a party store might be good.

Conversation I Would Like to Have

If Mommy doesn't get more than three hours of sleep per night, she will never ever get well from this cold!

To review the action for those lucky enough to have slept through the play by play:

9-11:30: Tot too restless and overtired to sleep. Mom would've had no trouble, but alas.
11:30: Woke up from what Mommy thought was a sound sleep
12:00: Finally got him to bed. Mommy went to bed.
2:00: Tot woke up with a leaking diaper.
2-3: Fitful sleeping by Tot and Mom with Mom fighting for space from Tot and Cat.
3:00: Must've slept.
5:00: Mom had to get up.

GAH! Thank God and all the little angels that this is the last day I teach at 8am.

As is usual when I wake up on time, I'm still late getting into the shower. No doubt my being in the shower will wake Tot, still in our bed.

Oh the Slog

Well, I managed to do something I thought impossible. I graded 5 projects today while taking care of Tot. (AL's at work.) I'm finally done with this batch, having done 5 each day for the last 4 days, which I realize sounds like practically nothing, but. . .ugh. It's a lot. It's a lot to take time out of being with the family on the weekends. It's a lot when there's already so much to do. And these take a lot of time. Some are fine, just having trouble at trying something new that they're going to need to master. Some are completely maddening. All of them just require a lot of commenting because I do let them revise. Eeegads. It's just the usual stuff. Some plagiarism. Some blowing the assignment off, though the major assignment-blower also hates the subject we've been covering, so I had to be careful about how to address hir's work. Part of me just wants to scream: you're wrong! and be done with it. But there are other, more serious issues to address, so I don't do that.

I want to feel triumphant because I'm finally done with this set of projects, but instead I feel deflated. I have these to hand back tomorrow, but I'm going to have to look at practically all of them again, hopefully in much better shape. There are some great points to my job that especially work for my life right now, but the teaching situation of exactly what I'm teaching and whom I'm teaching it to is not one of the perks. Basically, remember that I'm working on a project that I'm calling Turnip Studies, which is very closely related to Root Vegetable Studies. I consider myself very much a scholar of Root Vegetable Studies. My field is Vegetable Studies, but what I teach is Tomato Studies, which many people consider a part of Vegetable Studies, but it's also a field unto itself and connected to Fruit Studies (not Sisyphus's Fruit Studies) because there are so many tomatoes in the world and they are quite popular and distinctive. I can do Tomato Studies and even have some non-academic experience with Tomato Studies, but I am not a big fan and never dreamed I'd be teaching Tomato Studies quarter after quarter. (Most people in Vegetable Studies focus on Squash Studies, by the way.) I am teaching a class in Root Vegetables pretty soon (yay!), but since most of my students don't care about any vegetable but tomatoes and the occasional pepper, I don't know if anyone will sign up.

In a recent department meeting, I found myself so depressed to realize that all of the issues on the table were ones that really require members of my group to address them (and there aren't enough of us to spread them around and some of us really don't help either -- and we get no course releases for resolving these issues for the university, though that's exactly what we need to do) that I started fantasizing about lifting up and out of this situation and going to a new one. On the other hand, I look at what some of y'all are up against, and I think how well my job works for my life, if not for me, right now. For example, most of the faculty in my department live elsewhere and drive in. So it's normal that people aren't in every day, but only on the days they're teaching and for the occasional meeting. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that my department is considered non-essential to the workings of the university and that members of my department have really low morale for a bunch of good reasons. So no one expects anyone to be there beyond their duty. This works for me right now because I get to spend time with Tot during the week. Now, really I'd like to spend my career in an active thriving department where we spearhead a lot of projects. But this way I can spend my time with my family. It's all very strange because when I was in grad school thinking about the kinds of jobs I wanted, I didn't imagine a family in the mix. Of course, I couldn't imagine how having a family would change my perspective on what's important. And all that said, I really love my scholarship and love what's coming up for me in the coming months on that front. When I went up on the job market the year I got this job, all I wanted was a regular paycheck. I still want that. I can't complain.

But grading's a slog. A merciless slog. And there's more coming up.

Here's a bit of what I need to do in the next ten days:

• Read and respond to a colleague's article.
• Write handout for Junior's project 4.
  
• Grade Junior class presentations.
• Grade Freshman class presentations.
• Grade Junior class projects.
• And, by the way, I have a conference paper to write for next week.
  

GAH! Gotta go. Tot needs his diaper changed.

Attempting the Near Impossible

It's 11:30, and I'm totally not really awake yet. Despite my efforts (giving my two-year old the purple stuff that he's not supposed to have until he's four -- but what do you do when you want your congested and coughing tot to sleep so you can sleep and your pediatrician has already prescribed something extremely similar previously -- so much for doing things the natural way -- wow, I'm totally defensive about my parenting -- anyway), Tot woke up at 6am and kept me awake until 8, then we let him watch a movie while we slept, then finally AL got up with him so I could sleep until 10:30, and I'm still completely exhausted. As you can probably tell from some of our parenting choices, we're totally overwhelmed right now. I pretty much feel like a terrible parent, but I hope our choices are defensible in that put-the-oxygen-mask-on-yourself-first way. Also, I suppose Tot will not be forever scarred by watching Elmo in Grouchland in his playpen.

Also, I just feel a bit defensive in general. I don't get much time for myself. Why when I'm at work and supposed to be grading do I end up surfing the web looking at your blogs and get so behind? Because I don't get much time for me in my life, and I'm a person who needs a lot of alone time. Just to figure out my muddled thoughts. Just to figure me out, because I am moody and volatile -- pretty much, by nature. So I've already told AL that I'm staking the claim for more me time -- so that I'll be a better parent, a better partner, a better professor.

On that front, I'm delighted to tell you that I actually called and made an appointment with a therapist. Yay! Huzzah! I have issues, dude. And I need to work them out. I need to work on my anger management. I also need to work out big issues from my childhood and how this affects my perspective on things. It bothers me how many times I've been over the same territory, but I think I figured out the other day that it's just never over. It's never just finally done with. I want it to be done and worked out and never have to think about it again because I'm okay and well and the trauma is over, but perhaps it's just never over. For years and years and years I've figured there has to be something wrong with me medically because I'm so volatile and sensitive -- or maybe I have ADD, or I'm bipolar or whatever. Maybe I just have PTSD. I don't know. But I want to be a better less volatile parent -- and if love of myself and my friends has never provided the kick in the ass I needed, well, finding myself screaming at my kid because he's doing kid things, well, I'm sure that other parents have screamed at their kids in bad moments and I'm pretty sure Tot won't be permanently scarred, but I refuse to be my mother and I really do love Tot more than anyone else in the world and he fucking deserves better, so I'm going to therapy.

Well, obviously I needed to say all that. I had a very bad Thursday where I basically showed up near-tears in my best faculty friend's office. And I haven't even had time to reflect on it or write about it or anything because that's the way my life is. Errgh.

But the near impossible thing I simply must do is try to grade. Tot is taking a very early nap, which means I've got to hop-to and get some grading done -- since I spent Thursday focusing on me things instead of grading and now I'm behind. (I hate that. There's no time for me in my day. I go straight from Professor Earnest to Mommy to a smidgeon of time if I'm lucky between Mommy and bed.)

Anyhoo, I've got to find my Professor hat and work on these projects. Gah. But I'm glad I'm managed to tell y'all that I finally am making some great strides toward this year's goals of health and peace.

Daycare Problems: What Do You Think?

Oh, I feel so beaten down, trampled really. I know part of it is that I'm sick. My dad is still in the hospital and we're wondering if his being in so long for extra tests signals the Big C; I talked to my brother yesterday and among other things, we discussed Dad's values -- his fancy cars and charging high rent to his kids on an apartment he probably couldn't get rented anyway. So it was already an emotional day. I also didn't manage to eat after breakfast until I got home. But the trampling has to do with Tot's daycare. I desperately need an outside perspective.

Last night, when I picked up Tot, I noticed he was trying to sit down without sitting on his butt -- and his thermals were all bunched up inside his pants. When we changed him, we found had the worst case of diaper rash I've ever seen on the little guy. Painful to look at. A couple layers of skin off. Really bad. And he was clearly in pain, though before he had been basically his happy self, though he's sick (and we clearly shouldn't have taken him into daycare yesterday in the first place).

Both AL and I were freaked out about the diaper rash: he didn't have it in the morning. I changed him, and though I don't remember particularly looking at his butt, I know I would've noticed that. Of course, this puts the question mark on what's going on at daycare. But really, he just has a terrible bout of diarrhea (which we've figured out since) and it's irritating his skin -- and I'll bet dollars to donuts the poor guy is scratching. (Poor thing has my super-sensitive skin.) I had initially thought that he had a skin reaction to the eucalyptus oil I was experimenting with because it's supposed to be good for colds. But now I don't think that was it. Anyway. This isn't the problem.

The problem is that when we took off his pants and thermals, we saw there was poop on them. That's not cool. He has extra clothes, so it wasn't that they didn't have extras and he had to wear them. The daycare people must've not noticed. On the one hand, I can see how it happened -- how they would just not notice, especially in the case of a big bad terrible poop, which is likely what was going on. On the other hand, do I really want my treasure in a place where they didn't notice that there was poop on his clothes? Even on the outside of his clothes? (I guess it's possible that they saw and made the judgment that it wasn't worth changing his clothes because we'd pick him up soon, but that's not a great judgment either.) This comes on top of some issues that have made me a little worried about this daycare in the past, especially about their respect for following parents' instructions. I could go on and on about their totally insane food choices -- okay, so they don't care about GMO or organic or whatever, but everyone knows about what sugar does to children and how children need nutritious food and someone please tell me what possible effing nutritional value Nilla Wafers have? Anyway.

AL put it very simply: we pay them to provide the care that we would. He took me into the bathroom to look at Tot's clothes soaking in the sink: is this what we want for Tot? Is this what we pay for? He's decided that Tot is not going back there. He's taking days off work to make sure Tot is okay. (And there's no way that Tot is starting new daycare all sick and rashy.)

In order to present this correctly, I have to say that Tot has learned all his letters and now sings the alphabet song (though with letters omitted) primarily because this place has done such a good job with him. Not that I care whether Tot is a verbal genius, necessarily. I want him to eat well and be well cared for. I want him to be able to run around. When he's there, he seems to be quiet and into himself. That's not strange for his age or temperment -- AL and I were and are both very animated and goofy at home (when I have the energy, which I frequently do not), but are sometimes withdrawn and reserved out there in the world, especially when we're uncomfortable. Is Tot uncomfortable there? I don't know. He's not as excited about going there (and I can say that the tenor of the place has changed a bit lately), but doesn't cry when I leave either. (He does sort of follow me around and doesn't want me to leave, but I don't know if that signifies anything but that I am his mom and he prefers me.)

Here's the thing: on the one hand, I think AL is leaping to a decision here. He's not being fair to the place. Tot was not endangered in any way -- and a little poop on his clothes is not the worst thing in the world. On the other hand, is that what I want for Tot? What duty do I have to be fair to the place, when the most important thing is Tot? When it comes to my kid, I don't have to be fair. In fact, my duties are to do the best for him. Can I really say now that this place -- poop on his clothes, food issues, respect for parents issues -- is the best we can do? Furthermore, do I want to argue to keep him there? Do I feel so great about it that it's worth arguing about? No, not really.

I'm really freaked out. And I'm not sure whether it's the daycare, my concern for Tot and his diaper rash (which is really terrible to look at), that I'm sick, AL's strong reaction, or just the accumulation of all this on top of my father in the hospital and my poor unhappy brother.

Oh, I hate searching for new daycare. Despite that there are tons of daycares in the area, it never feels empowering. Our stance on vaccinations and food makes us fringe -- and I always feel at a disadvantage. I know I'm paying them -- and in a consumer economy (yeah right) that's supposed to give me the advantage -- but they've got something up on me -- we're talking about my son. My precious, my only, my baby son. (Yes, I'm being melodramatic, but I feel melodramatic. And he's no longer a baby. He's two.)

I'd really like to hide under a rock.

Theming the Year and Trying to Get to the Truth about Workload

I don't usually do the whole theme-the-year thing that a lot of you do, but this year I think I'll try it. I'm torn between "Health" and "Peace," which roughly amount to the same thing. I want to approach various parts of my life in a healthier or more peaceful way: academic work, parenting, partnering, connecting with others. I want to be less angst-y and recognize that in some cases it really is a choice. Writing my recent short article was a great lesson for me -- instead of metaphorically grinding my teeth and generally working with a great deal of friction, I just got on with it and did it. I didn't panic, didn't worry anxiously that the editors wouldn't like it or that I sucked or anything. I just worked and got it done. I think that this is how I got the dissertation done on my best days, but it's hard to remember that when those days were interspersed with angsty, procrastination-filled days when I couldn't sit still and settle down into the work. That anxiety often gets in my way. And so often it's about the future, which I can't control anyway.

Then there's my actual physical health, by which I mean that I need to get some exercise, especially since I eat pretty well -- probably too much, but I eat tons of veggies due to my winter CSA. I'd also like to get a handle on my finances, which I've got a plan for.

But what I've been thinking about for the last few days is really marking how many hours a day I'm working. I have this general sense that because I only go to campus three days a week (typical for my university with all the commuting professors) I'm not really working enough. And then I have this inferiority complex and try to take on too much. I really do too much service, probably, but most of it is stuff I really believe in so much it would hurt for me to leave it alone. (Some things are using skills and interests that only I have, you see.) But though I was having a really hard time getting my syllabi done when I was sitting in my office last week, I did notice that I had very little problem working on them in the in-between times this weekend. At no point this weekend did I freak out and yell: "Take care of Tot because classes start Monday and I've got to finish my syllabi GAH!!!" Not only did I just get on with it, but I didn't have to sequester myself from AL and Tot to get it done. Now, mostly I got things done when Tot was asleep. I certainly couldn't grade that way. But I also noticed that I was working a LOT of the time. I didn't take a lot of time to relax either. If I were in my office daily, there'd surely be some time when I sat there staring out of the metaphorical (not actual, though perhaps I should put a lovely picture up that I could space out to meditate on) window pondering. But instead my pondering time -- or much of it -- is when I'm doing something else -- like trying to keep Tot from killing himself by jumping off his new toddler bed. (No, he's not sleeping in it. But he likes to climb into it and say he's going "nigh nigh." I still haven't gotten him off sleeping via nursing. I've tried. He's two years old. I'm tired. I have no great excuses here. But at least I'm only torturing myself. And Lover.) So at some important point (I think actually when I started at Specialized U) I started writing down everything I did and accomplished each day (sometimes week), which has proven really helpful come annual report time. But now I think I also want to spend some time focusing on how long I spend as well to see whether my fears of underworking are really founded or not. (Not that academics necessarily have to work 40 hours a week to justify themselves, but that I feel like I do radically under that, except when grading, when the figure jumps up.) It's not that I will necessarily change anything if I do find that I underwork, but I'd like to really know rather than act out of fear. Knowing the truth seems to be the first step to approaching work in a healthier way.

So I may actually keep track of my hours here on the blog. I've already done a lot of work this morning -- proofread 2 syllabi and associated material, emailed them into printing (twice because I was too tired the first time), checked work email several times, written some email back, and done some hmmphing and thinking because this colleague that I'd like to work with on a specific project thinks I want to do something different but because he's having family crises right now it's not a good time to sort it out. How long did I spend on all that? At least two hours. So that's a good start to this.

Happy New Year!!!

Right now, Absurdist Tot is watching his Cookie Monster DVD, totally charmed. Since he woke up with a fever, which made him very toasty when he snuggled in bed next to me but of course is not a good thing, it's a pleasure to see his face break open into a beaming smile even with his watery eyes. This is after he's already gotten one dose of Elmo. My son loves Sesame Street, just like his mother. One of the first songs I sang to him was C is for Cookie, probably not the most brilliant thing to sing a child who you're hoping will eat healthily. Oh well. Consistency and hobgoblins.

Absurdist Lover is sick too and actually taking some really productive steps toward health. And amid the sickness, I feel very optimistic about the new year on many fronts. First, I am committing to doing those things that will make me feel better: namely, exercise. Instead of talking about going to the yoga studio near my house, I'm actually going to go. Exercise makes such a huge difference to my brain and body health that I practically owe it to my family to do it. Yoga especially just makes me feel. . .high. How much of an idiot does one have to be to avoid doing something that feels so good? Just because of a little sweat. The whole pressure to be a good mom also does its number on me. Like many toddlers, Tot is a particular eater, which for him means that he still eats a lot of baby food jars. (At least he eats a bunch of vegetables that way.) He also still falls asleep nursing and goes to bed really late. I feel so behind and bad motherish because I've allowed these things to go on. Most of the time, even AL is itching for me to try to move Tot forward on these fronts, especially the sleeping. But lately AL said not to worry about it, that Tot is fine and will grow out of it. And that's opened up a tiny little ray of grace that maybe these issues do not signal my bad mothering, but just are what they are.

(It's taken at least an hour to compose this post so far. Now Tot is asleep on the couch, which is a marker of just how sick he is.)

So I'm going to exercise. I'm going to try to not beat myself up. I'm going to do other things -- like take my vitamins -- that contribute to a happy, healthy head. I'm going to go to therapy. I also need to find Tot a better pediatrician, because I feel like we're getting drive-through doctoring. He looks at Tot for three seconds, then writes him a prescription. When he's got a cold, okay. I know, the doctor has probably seen the exact same symptoms a dozen times the same week. But when I'm talking about a bump on his penis? No. I need a doctor who will say more than "Don't worry, Mrs. Earnest." I'm also thinking about enrolling Tot and myself in a toddler art class. We need to do fun things when we're together.

I'll be teaching in a week, and I haven't put together my syllabi yet. But I've got some great ideas and revisions to these classes that should jazz up the classes for me and present more involved learning experiences for the students. There are also some little things I'm going to do that to me signal that I've gotten more comfortable at Specialized U. And I'm working on an elective that I'll likely be able to teach in the fall. I'm also one of several people who've been approached about developing a new class that's really right up my alley. So that's exciting.

On the scholarship front, there are good hopeful things too. I'm going to an awesome specialized conference in the spring that will help me further develop my elective and is on a subject I'm completely devoted to. And then there's an awesome workshop in the summer that is in an adjacent field to mine -- I should hear back from them one of these days.

In the past three or so months, I have sent out all my creative work, wrote and sent out a short article, started two groups designed to support my continued writing, and held a successful and very meaningful event. I also worked on our department website, making some changes that I hope improve its overall look and usefulness. That's not bad. I've also managed to get myself excited and hopeful again about teaching.

On personal fronts, I've managed to get on top of our finances, send out Christmas cards to most of my friends, and, with yesterday's strange warm weather after weeks of snow, planted those bulbs in the little patch of grass around our patio. (Yes, even totally missing bulb planting last year, I totally missed prime planting time again this year. But with the wacky warm weather, I figured it might be another chance. I'm not terribly hopeful for the bulbs actually, because the earth doesn't seem particularly fertile and they'll have to make it up through a net of grass, but at least they are in the earth now instead of in a bag or the refrigerator. Maybe next year I'll get them in on time. Maybe next year, we'll be in a house. I've seen some very hopeful looking rent-to-own possibilities here.)

I don't know. I guess taking those vitamins that are especially good for my brain chemistry has really helped. I feel hopeful, even in a house of sickos. Here's to good starts to the year!

Parenting at Christmas

I really appreciate everyone's comments on this, but I'm sick of looking at this post, so

***poof***

Meeting a Deadline

No, this is not yet the self-congratulatory post of having met a deadline. Actually, instead of beating myself up for still working on an article submission on the day it's due, I've decided to be positive -- I will make this deadline. I have before, and I will again today. I worked all day on Friday, despite being sick. I couldn't really get that much done over the weekend, of course. So I have no time to lose in my usual puttering and procrastinating. (I already started toying with template changes, but working to change the blog so I can have a black font will just have to wait for another day. Sorry folks.)

I also have a number of more substantial posts brewing. But I have to focus. I'm writing here what I need to do, because I love that feeling that even though I'm alone in my house, I'm actually working in the context of a lot of other fellow workers. (Yes, I realize that most of you are probably braving the winter roads and overpacked malls to get Christmas shopping done. No, mine is not done, though as usual I'm going to make things for gifts. This year I'm thinking granola.)

So here are the things I have to do to this article:

1. Print it out. DONE!!!
   
2. Read through existing over-long narrative section for main points. DONE!!!
   
3. Restructure over-long narrative section by points. DONE!!!
   
4. Hope to God this takes off about 500 words. NOPE!!! Still over by about 300 words. GAH!!! Ahh, just found I could rid of an endnote that was incredibly long. It was a good one though. Sigh. Oh well.
   
5. Go through the entire piece and see what else can be hacked off. DONE!!!
   
6. Write bib.
7. Update page numbers to second edition of Incredibly Important Main Text. DONE!!!
   
8. Read and revise piece for academic language, making sure that none of the freewriting placeholding blab is still there. DONE!!
   
9. Format for any weird particularities. DONE!!
   
10. Proofread carefully. DONE!!
    
11. Submit. DONE!! (By 3:15pm: oh good, just enough time for me to get cracking on this abstract, then run and get Tot)
    

I also need to write an abstract for a conference today. I have some ideas, but sadly I'm stuck at the "so what? what does this get us?" part.

And I have to get everything done by about 3:45, because I promised the daycare I'd pick him up at 4pm. They have special sign-up holiday hours, and I just hate the idea that some poor young person is going to have to stay late just for me.

While I'm doing this impossible totally doable work, y'all can help me out. What do you get the lead teacher of your daycare? The cute idea I had totally fizzled out. How much do I spend? What kind of thing should it be?

Owning Up and Trying to Have a Sense of Humor

I'm so behind. SO behind. I still haven't gotten things back on track since Tot and I were sick. Then last week I had one of those funk days where I got a number of good things done, but I didn't make great headway on the things that are really behind. I'm just hanging on until this is all over, so I can focus for a while on an old (creative) project that I'm all excited about again. But first I have to slog my way through to the end, starting with catching up on things I'm having a hard enough time getting myself to do already.

Now, this morning Tot is sneezing and sniffling. And I've already had a minor freak out. This is not a great way to start out the week!

My emotions were also running high yesterday. I hate apologizing for being a bitch. But I certainly was. I'm pretty sure it's that I'm excited about this new-again project, but I have no time to work on it. My home life is almost completely Tot-care. Tot is not the kind of kid who can be held on my lap while I work. In fact, if the laptop is out, he wants to plunk on it. If we're not paying enough attention to him, he starts running around the house screaming. So I can't get work done here, whether teaching, scholarly, creative -- you name it. The only thing I can do is cook, and then only if Absurdist Lover watches him. The trouble is we both have our agendas for the day and have to compromise. I was definitely not a good compromiser this weekend. In fact, I pretty much sucked at being a decent adult, at least yesterday. But I did make a pretty fabulous zucchini bread, my first. Not that zucchini bread makes anything okay, but it certainly makes for a nicer breakfast.

Now, I'm going to pull myself together and try to be a calm mom and academic with a big supply of humor. Is anything so bad that it's really worth freaking out about? This is just the natural absurdity of our lives. If I just look at it right, I know it's super-funny.

Everyone: have a great week full of focus, self-knowledge and -control, and lovely things going right!

I Wanted to Write about Cooking, but This is What Came Out

So while many of my academic friends are starting their semesters or gearing up to start them, I'm waist-deep in my summer quarter and taking the day off because I'm sick.

I've been thinking a lot about how I grew up -- or specific shaping experiences from my childhood -- and how they affect me now, how they color my view of the world. And I'm thinking that they do. I see possible menace around most corners. Sometimes it seems amazing to me that people don't kick in locked doors and smash through glass much more often than they do. I guess some part of me doesn't really believe in safety or security. Many of my dreams are about being chased or found -- or acquiescing to some terrible more powerful person in order to live through it. (I guess that sums up some aspects of my childhood pretty well.) I also have a terrible temper, a really low threshold for frustration.

I've explored all this -- written about it, talked about it, addressed it. I was in therapy once, though I think we focused on other things, and it seems like therapy is probably the next step now, but I also had a bad therapy experience. (Don't get me started about therapists I've known from the way past and the problems I can see with therapy.) My former therapist said I had a lot of stuff that was right on the surface. If the point is to talk this stuff out in order to get it out of my subconscious, well, I've done that. I know at least some of the ways in which this childhood stuff colors my life. But what do I do about that, dammit? I want practical strategies, not to just talk about it all the time. I told this to my former therapist, but I think developing practical cognitive strategies wasn't really his strong point. Of course, he also wanted me to go get diagnosed and medicated as manic depressive. I will admit that I feel like I've spent a fair amount of my life trying to cope with fluctuating moods, but not in a manic depressive way. More of a turbulent way. (Super rapid cycling?) A friend of mine said it really well. What did she say? She said I was. . .unpredictable? Something like that. Well, if you think it's hard to predict how I'm going to respond when you're a different person, imagine how much harder it is to live inside that? I try for self-awareness, growth, self-acceptance, but there's a lot going on in here. I often don't know what's going on! It's not that I'm deliberately emotionally dishonest, but I've got a lot of conflicting emotions, some that are elusive even to me! I'm trying to be more mindful. And Tot definitely deserves someone more in control. I certainly don't want to recycle that particular childhood with different players. AL says that a good therapist would help me to see it differently, would ask me different kinds of questions that would help me see it in a different way. It's hard for me to imagine that there's territory I haven't explored, read about, written about, talked to other people about, etc., but I guess that's when you go to therapy. So that is likely coming up in the coming months.

I also really have an aversion to some of the discourse around childhood experiences like mine. The victim discourse. The overuse of the word "abuse." I do understand when people say "I'm this way because this happened to me when I was a kid and I'm still dealing with it" but I don't like to do that. I guess I really want to pass as normal in some ways. I know I'm not. But I don't want people to look at me as some maladjusted misfit either playing the victim card. Yes, I have the credibility to play that card. But I like being able to pass. I really don't want to blame my present lot on my childhood -- that was a long time ago and I'm an adult. But I can see the ways all this fear and crap self-esteem sort of lowers the horizon of my expectations. Sometimes life seems so bleak. (On the other hand, there are great gifts of all this too. I think I understand better when people living under political oppression say that they wonder if every car they hear is for them, if soldiers or whoever are going to break in and drag them out from their beds. How do people live with that, most Americans wonder? You just do, I want to say. You can't help yourself. You live with it, around it, under it. You get used to it, even as it weighs on you, even as you wonder if your kids will make it home from school. You half-expect something to blow up between here and every there you go to.)

But why does all of this lead to crap self-esteem even eons hence? I know I didn't deserve those experiences. I really do know. I know the circumstances and life histories that led to those experiences. I've done work on forgiving the people involved. I can conjure up anger at them if I want. But it does me no good except that anger is a firey emotion and is not as debilitating as grief. But it's all so stupid. Of course, having a child has brought all this up. I wanted to be better by the time I had a kid. I get so mad -- and at what? The fact that being a toddler, he has different priorities. He doesn't understand the importance of getting out the door right now before the cat scrambles out. Or that he can't have his way all the time. Ridiculous. He's a child. He needs love and discipline, not a mom who flashes red because of stupid things. I really do think a part of this is that I feel so worn down that those flashes of anger are also flashes of energy. I need to work out, which is the only thing that I've decided I really must do today, even in the face of a bunch of work that should get done but which is not compatible with the relaxing and recuperating taking a sick day ought to involve.

Why is all this on the surface and why do I feel compelled to share it? Well, I saw a website that advertises parent coaching. It might good. It might be totally inspired. I don't know. But it basically said that when I lose my cool, this reflects on my maturity level. Parenting is about the parents. And while I totally agree with this, reflecting on it in the moment only contributes to my feeling terrible about myself, something I'm trying to work on. I'm actively trying to have a better outlook and not indulge in the ridiculous self-fulfilling self-talk that I'm undeserving and undisciplined and nothing good is ever going to happen for me (a line of logic that my lived life already proves false, but these things aren't logical). Somehow saying to myself that I've got problems or that I'm not good at controlling my temper means that I'm a totally terrible person, rather than a person with an important flaw that I'm working on. So I'm not that mature. Okay, I can live with that. But is parenting really all about the parents? Is this discourse really about blaming parents for all that happens with kids, when that's really just not fair at all? (I'm not linking to these websites because I don't feel I'm representing them fairly or accurately. I haven't participated in their programs, so I can't really say. But I wonder if I would want to participate in their programs or if this is just another way to make parents feel bad or what?)

Why post this on my blog? To own it? To come out? I don't know exactly. I'm writing it because though I really want to write about other things, this is what's come out. But that doesn't explain publishing it. Hmmm. I guess I'm pressing publish because I need to connect with others, share, be heard and listen to what others have to say. Your turn.

***Postworkout***

I feel flipping fantastic! Worth 50 mg of Zoloft my friends. Surely if I worked out regularly, my frustration would just melt away. So much of my life is good. Blessed, really. Thank you, Legs of Steel 2000!

Grumpy Tot, Grumpy Mom. . .Not?

So guess who was at the farm today when she got a phone call from the daycare saying that Tot has blisters showing up on his hands and feet? As in Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease.

That's right! Me!

So despite that there is a local conference I've been looking forward to for months, I'm looking squarely at least a week of full-time Earnest-as-Supermom Totcare. I wonder how many times one can watch Follow that Bird before one becomes stark raving mad? I've been reading Amanda Cross mysteries (thank you, Ink, if you're out there, but what happened to that Professorroman link?), and finishing the last one I thought maybe I'd try to read some inspiring creative work or something on anger, but clearly I need to get over to the used bookstore immediately because I'm going to need to read something soothing after hard consoling-Tot days.

He's in his crib now crying because he threw toys when I said not to and that's his punishment. Dear lord. I feel like a terrible mom. Maybe the next week will be fun. Right? Any ideas of consoling things to do since we can't go to the park? Sigh.

Some of Us Never Learn

So Tot is still sick -- ear and upper respiratory infections. AL has also been sick since the holiday. And guess who's sick now?

Guess who still hasn't worked on her syllabus? And is now late with her annual report? And has less than a month to write a well-written article? Remember when I said that being a mom means that you can't leave everything to the last minute because the last minute is when everyone's going to get sick? Well, I may be smart, but I'm not wise. I haven't learned this lesson yet. Luckily, I have the weekend before the syllabi really need to be done. And Kinkos is open 24 hours (somewhere, not near here).

What a dork.

I'm keeping Tot at home because he doesn't look good and because I can, in contrast to how it usually is when I can't stay home unless it's really bad. Also, I'm sick too, though not terribly. It's also super hot; we've been having a terrible humid heat wave.

Tot is trying to say letters to Superwhy right now. He says these sounds in a very staccato way; it's very cute. Poor guy.