Have you ever had one of those days where you're fairly certain that you're not as good as you think
I'm having one, anyway. No reason in particular that I can think of, either, which just makes the feeling that much worse, because I can't pinpoint it on any one thing. On the whole, things are pretty good: I've been getting to the gym every morning for the last week and a half, which means I'm all caught up on Cabin Pressure, and I'm trying to figure out if I can load stuff onto Andrew's iPad and watch movies or TV while I'm there as well. (There are televisions, but it's either CNN Business Week in Review or really hysterically bad Arabic soap operas. Which are possibly even funnier than Mexican soap operas.)
Andrew's doing well about school. I think he's over the jet lag, he's back to sleeping through the night with at least 11 hours if not twelve, so that's happy. And he's waking up early enough to get to school not obnoxiously late. He's also starting to talk in three-word sentences, and I even got a four-word sentence the other day. (Stupid me doesn't remember quite what it was, but it was about trucks and water. Of course.) And he's starting to use "I" - usually in the phrase, "Mama help, I stuck", which is uttered while at the top of the playground monkey bars, and he knows perfectly well how to get down from those, so I just shout back, "Yes, I see you, and you're not stuck, get down." So he does.
(I did it at Beano's yesterday afternoon with him. Oh, the other moms there with their children were horrified with me, I could see them staring in shock, but then Andrew got down just fine so I shouted, "Good job, I knew you could do it" and resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at them. My kid can out climb all the boys in the yard.)
Bill's father arrives tomorrow for a ten-day visit; apart from playing with Andrew, I'm not entirely sure what he wants to do. Bill seems to think that I am going to show him all over the city, but I'm not exactly sure how much sight-seeing one can fit in when you have to collect the toddler from school by 1pm.
(Which brings me to the rant of the day.)
So one of the embassy spouses has decided that she wants to have a writing group. I'm all about that; I was part of a very active writing group in Bishkek and it was loads of fun and I had a great time with it. This particular spouse even knows that I write fanfiction (another mom outed me, to my horror and her eternal glee) and doesn't seem to mind too much - or at least, she didn't make fun of me for it.
(The idea that fanfic is becoming legit, so to speak, is kind of rocking my world a little. But that's another discussion.)
Anyway. I got an email from her a few days ago saying that the first meeting is scheduled for next week. I asked what time, because Andrew's only in preschool in the morning, and the meeting is set to take place in another part of the city, about half an hour to 45 minutes away, depending on traffic (and road closures, and protests, etc and so forth - these are not a joke, nor are they terribly well publicized in advance, Andrew's gymnastics class was cancelled yesterday because the teacher couldn't get across the city because of those very things).
The response? No confirmation of the time, but the comment "You know, you might want to arrange for another mom to pick up your son from school once in a while, just in case stuff happens and you can't get there!"
Okay. Now, in theory, I get it. Life is unpredictable, and sometimes you got to roll with the punches. And I've picked up other kids from school before - there's another preschool around the corner from Andrew's, and I pick Jazz and Lila up often enough, sometimes I feel like I'm running a van service. And I know that Jazz's mom would pick up Andrew in a heartbeat, and Andrew would very likely go with her and not even blink.
And I'm actually trying to arrange for someone to pick Andrew up from school on Sunday, so it's not that alien a concept for me (and wouldn't be for him, either).
But....I feel a bit like there's an expectation within the embassy community that those of us with small children will automatically have near-full-time nannies to take care of the kids. Because this isn't even the first time I've run across this expectation - heck, it's not even the first time in the last week. There was a town hall meeting set up, specifically for the spouses of embassy employees in our area of the city. When were we told? Two days before the event. When was it held? Five to seven in the evening, right when we're all trying to wrangle the children and get homework done and start dinner and get ready for bed. When someone complained, the response? "What, don't you have a nanny?"
O_O
This became a topic at the playground the other day: how most of the activities we'd like to do are scheduled for the times when we'd have to have someone else to watch the kids in order to do them.
No, actually, I do not have a nanny. I don't want a nanny. I didn't go through all that time and expense in adopting Andrew in order to foist him off on someone else! And yeah, Nita's taken care of Andrew and done a good job of it, but Andrew thrives on routine, and having someone else pick him up at school breaks the routine, which has consequences. (Both times when Nita watched Andrew, he went to bed well...but woke up several times during the night after.)
As for picking him up at school...one of my favorite times of the day is picking Andrew up, because when he sees me in the garden, he just lights up, and shouts "Momma!" and races across the yard (sometimes knocking over children and toys on his way) to fling himself into my arms and give me a tight toddler hug.
Seriously, how is any writing group better than that?
You know, I don't particularly want to be one of those mothers who says, "Oh, my children are my entire life, I love every moment with them and I can't imagine life without them, blah blah blah." I can't stand those mothers, because thank you, I love him dearly, but Andrew is not my entire life, there are plenty of moments when I'm not loving life at all (think tantrums), and the hours I am Not A Mother are frickin' awesome ones. (I love preschool, for so many reasons.)
But the idea that I would just hire someone else to deal with the times motherhood is inconvenient? No. Motherhood might be inconvenient at times, but I signed up for that. I knew that going in.
And there's always going to be another writing group. I've only got a few years left of Andrew being excited that I've come to take him home.
Andrew's doing well about school. I think he's over the jet lag, he's back to sleeping through the night with at least 11 hours if not twelve, so that's happy. And he's waking up early enough to get to school not obnoxiously late. He's also starting to talk in three-word sentences, and I even got a four-word sentence the other day. (Stupid me doesn't remember quite what it was, but it was about trucks and water. Of course.) And he's starting to use "I" - usually in the phrase, "Mama help, I stuck", which is uttered while at the top of the playground monkey bars, and he knows perfectly well how to get down from those, so I just shout back, "Yes, I see you, and you're not stuck, get down." So he does.
(I did it at Beano's yesterday afternoon with him. Oh, the other moms there with their children were horrified with me, I could see them staring in shock, but then Andrew got down just fine so I shouted, "Good job, I knew you could do it" and resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at them. My kid can out climb all the boys in the yard.)
Bill's father arrives tomorrow for a ten-day visit; apart from playing with Andrew, I'm not entirely sure what he wants to do. Bill seems to think that I am going to show him all over the city, but I'm not exactly sure how much sight-seeing one can fit in when you have to collect the toddler from school by 1pm.
(Which brings me to the rant of the day.)
So one of the embassy spouses has decided that she wants to have a writing group. I'm all about that; I was part of a very active writing group in Bishkek and it was loads of fun and I had a great time with it. This particular spouse even knows that I write fanfiction (another mom outed me, to my horror and her eternal glee) and doesn't seem to mind too much - or at least, she didn't make fun of me for it.
(The idea that fanfic is becoming legit, so to speak, is kind of rocking my world a little. But that's another discussion.)
Anyway. I got an email from her a few days ago saying that the first meeting is scheduled for next week. I asked what time, because Andrew's only in preschool in the morning, and the meeting is set to take place in another part of the city, about half an hour to 45 minutes away, depending on traffic (and road closures, and protests, etc and so forth - these are not a joke, nor are they terribly well publicized in advance, Andrew's gymnastics class was cancelled yesterday because the teacher couldn't get across the city because of those very things).
The response? No confirmation of the time, but the comment "You know, you might want to arrange for another mom to pick up your son from school once in a while, just in case stuff happens and you can't get there!"
Okay. Now, in theory, I get it. Life is unpredictable, and sometimes you got to roll with the punches. And I've picked up other kids from school before - there's another preschool around the corner from Andrew's, and I pick Jazz and Lila up often enough, sometimes I feel like I'm running a van service. And I know that Jazz's mom would pick up Andrew in a heartbeat, and Andrew would very likely go with her and not even blink.
And I'm actually trying to arrange for someone to pick Andrew up from school on Sunday, so it's not that alien a concept for me (and wouldn't be for him, either).
But....I feel a bit like there's an expectation within the embassy community that those of us with small children will automatically have near-full-time nannies to take care of the kids. Because this isn't even the first time I've run across this expectation - heck, it's not even the first time in the last week. There was a town hall meeting set up, specifically for the spouses of embassy employees in our area of the city. When were we told? Two days before the event. When was it held? Five to seven in the evening, right when we're all trying to wrangle the children and get homework done and start dinner and get ready for bed. When someone complained, the response? "What, don't you have a nanny?"
O_O
This became a topic at the playground the other day: how most of the activities we'd like to do are scheduled for the times when we'd have to have someone else to watch the kids in order to do them.
No, actually, I do not have a nanny. I don't want a nanny. I didn't go through all that time and expense in adopting Andrew in order to foist him off on someone else! And yeah, Nita's taken care of Andrew and done a good job of it, but Andrew thrives on routine, and having someone else pick him up at school breaks the routine, which has consequences. (Both times when Nita watched Andrew, he went to bed well...but woke up several times during the night after.)
As for picking him up at school...one of my favorite times of the day is picking Andrew up, because when he sees me in the garden, he just lights up, and shouts "Momma!" and races across the yard (sometimes knocking over children and toys on his way) to fling himself into my arms and give me a tight toddler hug.
Seriously, how is any writing group better than that?
You know, I don't particularly want to be one of those mothers who says, "Oh, my children are my entire life, I love every moment with them and I can't imagine life without them, blah blah blah." I can't stand those mothers, because thank you, I love him dearly, but Andrew is not my entire life, there are plenty of moments when I'm not loving life at all (think tantrums), and the hours I am Not A Mother are frickin' awesome ones. (I love preschool, for so many reasons.)
But the idea that I would just hire someone else to deal with the times motherhood is inconvenient? No. Motherhood might be inconvenient at times, but I signed up for that. I knew that going in.
And there's always going to be another writing group. I've only got a few years left of Andrew being excited that I've come to take him home.