- Wild Man has become very interested in the potty. To encourage his interest we bought him a potty, and he sits on it every day before his evening bath. Several times he has actually peed in it. I don't think he is intentionally peeing in the potty, but he does seem to understand that is what the potty is for. Every time he does is C and I get very, very excited and give him lots of praise. And every time he looks at us as though we're completely crazy.
- Wild Man has taken to calling me "Daddy" lately, and I'm not sure why. If C tells him, "take this to Mommy" he comes right to me, but he hasn't called me "Mommy" or "Mama" in weeks. He still calls C "Daddy" though, so I guess we have the same name. I wonder if this has anything to do with all of C's recent trips.
- I am going to a conference in 2 weeks, and I'm equally excited and nervous. I'm excited to get feedback on this chapter which is an edited down version of my Wharton chapter, but I'm nervous to be away from Wild Man for so long. I will be gone for just over 48 hours, but I've never been away from him for longer than 8 hours. I also have to take my breast pump with me since Wild Man is still nursing in the evenings. I haven't pumped in months, so I'm so not excited about pumping, even only twice.
- I think I've finally figured out how to approach the current chapter I'm working on. In all honesty, I've been so preoccupied with C's job search that I haven't gotten a great deal of work done in the past few weeks. This week, however, I forced myself to write something. I also spatially mapped out the novel, something I did with The House of Mirth and found to be very helpful. Determining the spatial location of every scene in the novel helped me solidify my argument about the main character's relationship with space, both metaphorical and literal.
- I'm coming to terms with the reality that we may well be moving in a few months. I don't necessarily want to leave the small College Town we've come to think of as home, but I keep reminding myself that we knew this when we moved here--our time here was always going to be limited.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Random Updates
It occurred to me that most of my recent posts have been about C's job search. It also occurred to me that there have been other things going on in our lives that I want to write about. Here is a random assortment of happenings.
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5 comments:
Moving is always hard for many many reasons, I hope you get to move to a really nice place, though!
Good to hear about your chapter. You know, I'd really love to read your dissertation once you're done... maybe you can email it to me on PDF.
Do you and C feel differently about separation from Wild Man? I only spent 2.5 hours with Luke, this morning, because I worked through after school playtime, dinner, bath, etc. I feel really terrible about it, and the fact that this might happen more and more in the coming weeks and months. But 2.5 hours is the typical amount of time that Gabe gets to spend with him each day and he never seems to feel guilt about it. I guess because he has to go to work for x number of hours but I don't technically HAVE to work on this Ph.D.
We do feel differently about time away from Wild Man, Jennie. I feel guilty on days when I'm not able to make any dissertation progress--I feel like if I'm not getting work done he shouldn't be at school. C, on the other hand, who also "has" to work doesn't feel the same guilt about having Wild Man in daycare. But C has felt a lot of guilt in the past few weeks since he's had so many over night trips. He knows it is something he must do to get the tenure track job, but there is know what for Wild Man to understand that his father's absences are for a purpose; he just knows that his routine is disrupted and he misses his daddy.
Gabe has been going to work earlier than usual, so he can leave earlier than usual and pick Luke up from school. Luke is not happy with just Mommy in the morning. The other day he was swatting at me and I said, "Luke, why are you hitting me, that's not gentle." He answers, "I want to hit Daddy. I want him to come home, NOW! I don't want him to be at work." (Ouch--thoughts of Luke in therapy with abandonment issues flash through my mind. Not that I'm sensitive or anything about the fact that Luke has been getting less attention lately so I can work on the diss.) So I go into a little explanation about how his Daddy loves him, but he has to go to work to make money so we can pay for our house and clothes and food. Immediately Luke changes his tone (thinking about his little bank), "I want Daddy to give Luke money--the big silver ones!" No permanent damage after all.
If I could have that kind of conversation with Wild Man, I would welcome it! This sort of thing is definitely easier to explain to a 3 year old. And I find it hilarious that Luke's anxiety can be assuaged with the thought of Gabe dropping some money in his piggy bank.
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