Overheard at the End of Busy Day

Curious Girl is whining a bit about how it's not fair that the child lock on the car door prevents her from opening it when everyone else in the car can open their doors by themselves.

Politica: Curious Girl, I have no interest in listening to you whine anymore.

CG: Well, I guess you don't want to be my mom anymore, then.

The Meme of Five

Librarian Mom tagged me with the meme of five, so here goes! Per instructions:

1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read the player's blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answer.

What were you doing five years ago?
Let's see, that would be spring of 2003. I was on sabbatical, still getting to know the daughter I'd had in my arms for 4 months. I was going to feeding therapy with Curious Girl every week, having other Early Intervention folks in our home on a regular basis, and about a third of the way through the 43 visits to our pediatrician that would occur in that calendar year. I'd learned how to use a feeding tube, I'd played the cuckoo game with CG about a million times, and I'd spent a lot of time on the floor with her, making eye contact, talking with her, trying to figure her out. At work, I was talking with my chair, getting read to apply for promotion to full professor, and somehow, working on my sabbatical project on changes in writing program philosophy.

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?
(It's 8:00 p.m. as I type this, so I'm going to think about my to-do list more generally)

1. Write an essay that I should have finished last November, the lateness of which is causing me much angst and indecision.
2. Organize receipts for some recent visits to German University so I can get reimbursed.
3. Start some laundry
4. Find things to recycle, freecycle, or donate.
5. Help CG write thank you notes from her birthday party (a fabulous event about which I really should post)

What are five snacks you enjoy?

1. Peaches in summer
2. Grapes. Really, lots of fruit, but never melon
3. Bread
4. Crackers and cheese
5. Nice cold milk. Or milkshakes.

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?

1. Invest a bunch of it to ensure CG's future education/security and Politica's access to health care in retirement.
2. Give a bunch of it away--like Librarian Mom, I find it hard to say just what I'd give it to, but clean water, public health (malaria, AIDS, TB), education strike me as good places to start
3. Travel: there are really very few places you couldn't persuade me to visit. I love to travel.
4. Buy an electric car.
5. Hire a landscaper to develop the gardens around our house (and would I move to a better location in Germany? Maybe so; have to think on that one) and help maintain them.

What are five of your bad habits?

1. Staying up too late poking around the internet accomplishing nothing in particular and then being irritated at myself the next morning, doing it again, and then being doubly irritated the next day rather than just forming a new habit.
2. Letting the computer stay on a bit too often when I should be socializing with Politica/CG--I am getting better at the "just let me check my e-mail real fast before we...." but there's room for continued improvement.
3. Failing to focus my day so I get the big thing done first consistently.
4. Staying up too late when I'm alone at night (on the road or at home) because I'm afraid I'll be freaked out by house/neighborhood noises when I try to go to sleep, which only makes me more tired the next day.
5. Reading too quickly (which is sometimes an asset, but sometimes a problem).

What are five places where you have lived?

a small town in southern Ontario, a medium sized city in Michigan, a small city in west Texas, a small town on Long Island, a small town in Vermont

What are five jobs you've had?

1. phone surveyer for the phone company
2. camp counselor
3. library assistant
4. dishwasher
5. writing tutor

Tagging people: I hate tagging people, so if you're reading, and if you like five, have at it!

We Could Be Getting Married in the Morning

A month from now, that is, in California. A few key excerpts from the majority opinion:

"The California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples."

Allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry "will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage."

Bilerico has some good posts on the subject (including one warning about the socio-political-legal backlash that will likely follow. So once you're done doing the happy dance, get your activist shoes out and get ready to politic, ok?).

So Far, So Good

Despite some despair on Thursday and Friday, it looks like things are working out with the house we want. We're paying a little more than we'd hoped (but within our budget), and we still have to do the inspection, appraisal, and close on the mortgage, not to mention the house. But we've agreed to the sellers' counteroffer, and that feels good. Mississippi Friend would say, "Don't put your mouth on it," and she'd be right. So I'm going with so far, so good.

In Her Heaven

Curious Girl is busy with thank you notes for her birthday. Tante Mississippi and Curly Haired Cousin gave her a birthstone necklace, and here's what she told them at the end of the note:

I'm glad you're my aunt and Curly Haired Cousin is my cousin, and that Uncle Quiet used to be my uncle. Now he's uncle in my heaven.

We don't really talk much around here about heaven (except when CG is spinning theories about it), but it fascinates me to see CG's ideas about life and death playing out as she gets used to Uncle Quiet's death. Every now and then she'll ask me what Uncle Quiet is doing now, and I usually respond with the parental classic: "what do you think?" She has a lot of answers: "being dead," "taking a bath," or "sleeping" being some recent ones. (Yes, we have had a conversation about whether heaven has bathtubs. Haven't you? For the question of whether heaven is or is not like Facebook, I recommend you to the comments on a fabulous post by Arwen.)

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One night last week, Curious Girl woke up. As I snuggled her back to sleep, she said, "Do you want to hear a story about Uncle Quiet?" I did, of course. "Once upon a time there was Uncle Quiet. He was very kind. The End." I asked her if I could write that down for Tante Mississippi, telling her that I liked the story very much and that Tante Mississippi would, too. CG said, "Oh, and a joke, too. She needs a joke." She stopped to consider. "The pink tiara, was that at my party or Curly Haired Cousin's?" She was trying to remember where she saw Uncle Quiet playing with her sparkly tiara with pink fur trimming. We have a great photo of them together, being silly. Uncle Quiet had quite the silly side, which is really rather funny, as he was so very unsilly in many respects: he was the snappiest dresser of any male friend I've had, and reserved, and dignified. So the sight of him teasing Curly Haired Cousin and CG with the tiara was pretty funny. "I'll tell her a joke after the story. That will make her more happy." "Knock knock." (all together now..."who's there?") "Tiara." ("tiara who?") "Pink tiara."

She may have more social graces than comedy skills, I grant you. But she is awfully sweet.

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I miss Quiet Friend. CG's birthday party was the first social event at our house that he missed--Politica and I were always quite touched that he almost always came to events at our house even when he was super tired. But this time, no Quiet Friend. Mississippi Friend came, and we spent part of the party talking about the weather and cooking, trying to remember which was the party where she and Politica were at the grill, one cooking, the other holding an umbrella, and which was the party where Quiet Friend did the cooking in the rain.

Mississippi Friend is having a tough time of it, which is normal, I suppose, but as she points out, it's pretty darn irritating to have people say "Oh, that's normal," when she tells them something about her grief (so let me amend that sentence: what she's experiencing is so.not.normal: there's nothing normal about losing your 43 year old husband whose last 7 years included so much pain, fatigue, and medical procedures. It's not fair, is what it is.). It's clear from Mississippi Friend's stories that even the most well-meaning friends or relatives can say totally wrong-headed things. I've thought a lot about a thoughtful post Snickollet wrote on grief a while back, outlining ways people can do for their grieving friends. It's frustrating, watching a friend grieve: what she really wants is a whole re-do from the Universe, and we can't give her that. I can only hope that Politica, CG, and I are generally more helpful to her than not. I'm working on a letter that simply collects some of my favorite memories of Quiet Friend. One thing I can do, is write. So I write here, and will write privately for Mississippi Friend and Curly Haired Cousin, hoping my words capture some of the love we hold for her and Quiet Friend, here, and in our heavens.

Houses, Again

• We are in the midst of making an offer on a house, in the city neighborhood we want.
• It's a FSBO, not yet listed anywhere, but our realtor walked through it this morning and says it's pretty much got everything we want. We've seen his photos and the photos the seller prepared, and Politica has driven the block the house is on. So we're going to make an offer.
• Our realtor called the sellers this evening to find out a fact he needs to fill in on the offer, which is offering them full price. The only thing we're asking them for is half the closing costs (although I don't know they know that yet). The seller said that they would want two weeks to respond to the offer, so they can list it on the FSBO site on the weekend.
• We are now feeling cranky about the sellers. I understand that sellers want to maximize the price they can get for a property, and I realize that the first people to see a house and make an offer might make the seller think, "oh, I could have gotten more." But it seems quite greedy to simply want to take time to see if a bidding war will ensue.
• Our offer will give them until Friday. I hope it works out. This house feels like a very us house. I'll get to see it, I hope, next week, if things seem to be working. We've moved up quite a bit in the price range we decided to consider, but I'm not sure I want to move up higher.
  
• In any event, thanks for all the house comments. Politica and I talk about these things endlessly, and it's nice to have you all listening and commenting. I'd happily throw an ice cream social for all of you, were you all here, rather than in the computer. (but hey, poke pro could take care of that!)
  

Baby Bonding

When Jennifer Margulis asked me if I wanted to be part of the book tour for The Baby Bonding Book for Dads, her newest book--co-authored with her husband, James di Properzio, I said, "You remember I'm a lesbian, right?" She did, but said that she wanted the book to tour a variety of places in blog land, and she'd love to have a stop here. "Sure thing," I said. "Send it my way." (disclosure: Jennifer and I first got in contact with each other via some bloggy connection, and she phone interviewed me for a magazine article she was writing that never got published. Since then, we've had every-now-and-again e-mail correspondence in relationship to some of her writing. Her publisher provided the book for my use. You can read more of Jennifer online in at Literary Mama, Mothering, or the website for her previous book, Toddler.)

This book is a nice size--just slightly bigger than a 7"x7 square, with 20 short chapters, three pages each, with two photos each. And the photos alone are a reason to take a peek-- Christopher Briscoe's photos are exquisite. The chapters themselves are good--each very positive, stressing what to do with your new baby (as opposed to what to avoid). It's nice to read parenting advice that focuses on using playful, relaxed contact to build a great relationship with a new child.

When Politica and I were in the midst of our adoption process, we read a lot about bonding and attachment, so I read The Baby Bonding Book for Dads through all the attachment theory I've read. It's a nice idea to write a book for fathers that assumes they're competent and involved caregivers (I remember one of Curly Haired Cousin's doctors saying to Quiet Friend once, "So, you're playing babysitter today?" when Quiet Friend took Curly Haired Cousin to the doctor (who was accustomed to seeing Mississippi Friend there instead). "No, I'm being his father," Quiet Friend pointed out.) But there's nothing here that's particular exclusive to fathers: all new parents (of older children, of newborns) could practice what di Properzio and Margulis recommend here: spend time with your child, skin to skin. Carry her. Talk to him while dressing him. Feed her. Take him outdoors. Play games while changing her diaper. This book is clearly written by people who love their relationship with children, and who have great ideas about ways to start building a relationship with children from the very first moment of contact.

When Curious Girl first joined our family, we spent weeks playing on the living room floor together. CG (then 9 months old) wasn't very strong at first--in fact, she learned to crawl with her legs in that first month, and it took her a while to get up the strength to crawl over my legs. I remember that being a big deal at the time. She'd been used to life in her orphanage, which was a pretty quiet place, and we didn't want to overstimulate her. We also wanted to teach her who we were, help her understand what it means to live in a family rather than in an institution, and give her time and space to figure out her new life. And mostly, we wanted to encourage her to attach to us. When we first came home, she'd have gone to pretty much any adult (especially those with white coats, like her orphanage caretakers wore; since she was sick constantly, she saw lots of white coats in those early months!). We used our floor time to make lots of eye contact, to get her to look at us, come to us, react to us. We sang songs to her, made fun games out of everything, so she'd see us as sources of fun, and more importantly, sources of comfort and caring. A lot of what we did is reflected in this book--so while the title is focused on fathers bonding with their babies, I'd actually like to see it repackaged as a baby bonding book for parents.

I know, I'm contrary about gendered parenting books. I read this book with some suspicion, half expecting to be irritated by generalizations about mothers or fathers. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this book is mostly just father-to-father informal conversation, like this:

Anything you can do with your face is interesting, too. Pretend to look surprised, wiggle your ears. Blow little puffs of air into the baby's face and then laugh or make surprised noises--even gorillas play this game with their young--and your baby wil either laugh or frown. This is your first chance to let go of your staid, grown-up demeanor and be silly, because nobody wants to be like the really serious, boring old dads some of your friends had when you were a kid. Maybe you don't feel like a cool dad yet, but when you were a kid, like every kid, you knew in your heart that you weren't going to be a strict/boring/old-fashioned/whatever like your dad. This is prime practice time, because babie are like dogs: they don't care what you do so much, as long as you're paying attention to them.

Turns out my big quibble with this book is that I can't figure out what Jennifer Margulis actually wrote here. She and her husband are named as co-authors on the cover, but the book is written entirely in the first person singular by her husband. The preface leads off with a story about how the author used to watch his father shave and now his daughter watches him shave. I suppose there are a few chapters that don't have an explicit first-person reference (so perhaps this is the answer to my question), but her husband's "I" pops up enough through the book that it really reads like a singly-authored book, by a man writing to other men, particularly in the preface and epilogue. So I wondered a bit about where Jennifer was in all this. I'm a writing teacher: I think about how authors represent themselves. But that probably isn't going to detract from others' enjoyment of this celebration of parent/child bonding.

for a Certain Someone of A Certain Age

When I was One,
I had just begun.

When I was Two,
I was nearly new.

When I was Three,
I was hardly Me.

When I was Four,
I was not much anymore

When I was Five,
I was just alive.

But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

(A.A. Milne, from Now We Are Six, transcribed from the edition I got from my aunt and uncle for my fifth birthday)

German Houses Redux

Trying to move long distance is not a lot of fun. I'm expecting Politica home from a house-hunting trip any minute now. I haven't gotten the full scoop yet, but so far we have learned that I'm drawn to green spaces and she's drawn to more of a city neighborhood feel. That's OK: I rather like the city neighborhood she likes, too. Too bad we can't seem to find the right house. (Note to Universe: you could send a house anytime now. We'd be very grateful.)

At the moment, the options seem to be:

• move to small suburb, which is very small, and very homogenous, both in terms of income and race, and have a short commute on a not-so-interesting road. The upside? A neighborhood full of kids, with reasonably spacious houses that are new enough to have modern conveniences like large closets and family rooms but old enough to be reasonably well constructed. Reasonable size backyards.
  
• move to Germany (the pseudonymous one, which really needs a new pseudonym, but it so cracks me up to hear CG still making this confusion that I'm having trouble coming up with a better one), which is pretty diverse in terms of income, not so much in terms of race. The downside? so far, very hard to find a house we like.
• rent, but finding a rental actually doesn't seem easier (although I've not yet tried very hard).

So far, Politica has seen two houses she's enthusiastic about: The One That Turned Out Not To Be For Sale, and The One That's Listed for $119,000 more than We Hoped To Spend. Then there's the bad floor plan on the busy road, the OK house right next to a crisis pregnancy center/transisional housing/rehab center, the perfectly functional and modern house in the suburbs, The Hobbit House in the suburb's little center....this is very frustrating, and I beg your pardon and indulgence for whining about it here. It's a mysterious housing market--the neighborhood we really want to move to seems to be FSBO central in which houses get snapped up almost immediately, and houses are for sale without really being listed (Politica saw two or three houses that she just heard about from someone while she was visiting around). Sigh. This too shall pass, right? People do manage long-distance moves all the time. But still, sigh.

I'm not used to this

I'm finally getting to vote in a presidential primary with an actual contest going on. I just got a phone call from a gravelly-voiced someone alleging to be from the state's Election Board wanting to know if I had decided who I was going to vote for for President. Shouldn't the Election Board know that I"m not voting for president in the upcoming election? I'm voting for the nominee for president. Not the same thing.

A few days ago, I got a phone poll call, from an outsourced commercial polling outfit I'd never heard of. I couldn't decide who was sponsoring the poll; it was full of questions about whether I was more worried about losing civil liberties or terrorist attacks (the former, for the record) and whether I was worried about a decline in morality and relations between church and state. One question asked if any members of my family are gay or lesbian. The poll clearly didn't envision a lesbian respondent.

The AP poll got me, too. I love polls, which amuses Politica.

A local poll, focused on our Congressional primary, had a pollster who had been trained on all the candidates' names, but otherwise was reading very haltingly (as was the outsourced pollster asking the church/state questions earlier). I'm not impressed by people who can't read the forms properly. I wonder what that does to poll results, actually.

Earlier today, a volunteer from Hillary's campaign called me to find out if they could count on my vote. I'm leaning that way, I said, but still not quite sure. "I know people say it would be great to have an African-American president," the volunteer replied, "but wouldn't it be great to have the first woman president in our lifetime?" This is the sort of thing that makes me think I liked Hillary for president better before she started campaigning. I was going to just get off the phone and get back to work, but I thought, no, I should say something. I pointed out that it wasn't necessary to play a desire to have an African-American president against having a woman president: the categories aren't exclusive (in the abstract), and I don't want to cast my vote in the primary on either gender or race. Why not have volunteers say something substantive about what Hillary would do as president? The reason I'm leaning towards her is her health care plan. But her volunteer call has got me feeling crabby about her campaign. That's no way to educate likely voters, and it simply promotes an oversimplified and unhelpful view of both race and gender. Vote for me because I'm a woman? That doesn't get too far with me.

That said, we may try keeping CG up late to see Hillary at a rally here on Saturday. She'd be thrilled, and even has a little Hillary shirt to wear to it.

Choosing Family

This review is sponsored by Mother Talk: I received a copy of the book and an Amazon certificate.

I hope Alexandra Soiseth writes another memoir that will take up where Choosing You: Deciding to Have a Baby on My Own takes off. She's got some stories to tell, and despite the fact that I found some elements of her story-telling to be disappointing, I closed this book wanting to know more.

Choosing You endeared itself to me almost immediately. In the introduction, Soiseth explains how she welcomed her donor (sperm) into her family while getting ready for her first insemination. Olaf, the donor, sat at her dinner table nightly. She made conversation with the large steel container that had shipped the sperm she chose from Denmark. This is the kind of quirky detail that makes Soiseth's story remarkably engaging: as she describes the conversations she had with her running buddies, the interactions at parties, relationships with old friends and family, the details show real people out and about in the world. Not all the characters here are likeable all the time--but they're all the more likeable, on the whole, for their flaws.

This isn't a book that dwells much on the particulars of pregnancy-by-insemination. Soiseth, in fact, appears almost shockingly unaware of some of the legal and practical issues involving sperm banks and the possibilities for openness down the line. What Soiseth does here is chronicle her journey to motherhood: her longing for motherhood, her pregnancy, her delivery, her postpartrum depression. And all this is set in the context of her life. She has an amazing ability to create community and family beyond biology. A central set of characters is the extended family of her childhood best friend. This other family is family to Soiseth.

Is family about blood, or not? This is a story I'd love to hear Soiseth tell from several angles. She gathers family to herself, yet the passionately yearns for a blood connection to her child. She chooses donor sperm so that her child will look like her, look like her biological family. I had a complicated reaction to this theme: in many ways, I define family as those you choose, not those with whom you share DNA. Yet I treasure Curious Girl's longing to know her first parents, and I see how the biological question marks, and points of difference, are important to her. Important to me. So family is about blood, too. I want to know more about how Soiseth is continuing to talk about blood and family with her daughter. (You can see some of these issues hinted at in one of Soiseth's Literary Mama essays.)

I read this book twice now: the first time, I was disappointed. It wasn't the book I expected it to be. I had assumed more discussion of insemination politics and legalities, more dicussion of stories for her daughter about her donor father. I enjoyed the writing, but I was disappointed in the story. Reading some of the other reviews at the Mother Talk site, I realized I had perhaps been disappointed by my own assumptions. So I re-read. Soiseth's book is the story of her. It's not a story about how she talks to her daughter, it's not a story about insemination. It's a story about one woman's sense of self, one woman's ability to define herself, one woman's struggle with how others view her weight and how she views her body.

I hope she'll tell some other stories, too. But this set of stories takes us into the quotidian joys and struggles of someone making their own choice: take it on its own terms, and enjoy.