No, we don't . . .

have after school care, I have said at least 200 times since school began.  And then I think to myself, "Not that it is any of your damn business."  Inevitably, I get a look of astonishment, followed by, "Oh, okay, I guess we'll have to make meetings work around that schedule."  And I respond, "Yes, I guess we will, or else I'll just have to miss the meeting."

So no, we don't have after school care for Wild Man and Bear.  Actually, we only have it two days a week.  Those two days a former student of mine brings them home from school and stays with them until we get home.  Mondays I work from home, so Archer gets to stay a bit later at his office.  Fridays Archer works from home, so I get to stay a bit later at my office.  We did this for several reasons.  First, we're paying for full-time childcare for George.  Adding in the cost of after school care for Wild Man and Bear was more than our budget could take, or more accurately, it was more than we were willing for our budget to take.  Second, we're in the habit of picking our children up by 4:15 or 4:30, which means we'd be paying roughly $280 per child per month (for a total of $560 per month) for about forty-five minutes of care per day.  That didn't make sense.  This is a schedule/arrangement that works for us.  And if one more person asks me about it, I am likely to lose my cool.

As an aside, my colleagues who don't have children (or who have grown children) seem to get this decision.  It's the colleagues who have children the same age as Wild Man and Bear who are the most judgmental.  I am struggling to understand that.

Yes, yes, I can

Archer is out of town until Saturday.  Given some of his previous trips, this one is relatively quick.  He is only gone for two nights, although logistics mean that he is actually gone for three bedtimes.  The bulk of his trip occurs during the week, which means I am in the office and teaching, Bear is at daycare, and Wild Man is at kindergarten.  It does mean that I am responsible for the entire morning and evening routine on my own, and it also means I'm on point all day on Saturday.  Is it stressful?  Sure.  In fact, it is apparently so stressful that both my mother and Yetta called last night to make sure I could handle my children on my own.  My response, "Yes, yes, I can."  I really wanted to say, "If you were concerned, you could have offered to help, you know, sooner than the day before Archer leaves town."  I mean, seriously, if I had said, "Nope, I can't do it.  Someone is sure to suffer. I'll likely just leave Bear at the neighbor's house all week and make Wild Man fend for himself while I stay in bed," would either of them have shown up at my house?  Sorry for the sarcasm, but seriously.  Yes, yes, I can manage to take care of my children for 3 days all by myself.  I've done it before, and I have no doubt I'll do it again.  In fact, at some point, I am quite sure I'll be taking care of all three of them all by myself.

Annoying Questions

In the past few days, I've gotten a string of annoying questions from both my mom and from C's mom. Every single question revolves around Z's sex. I swear we didn't get any questions like this when I was pregnant with Wild Man. I'm starting to regret that we found out Z's sex as it seems to be the only thing our moms can think about. Here are a sampling of the questions.

• Are you sure Z's a girl? If Yetta asks this question one more time I will transport myself through the phone and strangle her.
• Are you buying girly things for her? This seems to be my mom's favorite as she asks it almost every time we talk. I give my standard answer: Well, we haven't bought much at all to be honest. We have a lot of stuff leftover from Wild Man, which is mostly yellow, green, and white. But we have got a few things that are clearly for a girl.
  
• Can I buy her (fill in the blank here)? Again, this is my mom and I give my standard answer: You can buy her whatever you want, Mom. Note: I only give my mom this answer as my mom is infinitely practical with gifts. My mom rarely buys toys for her grandkids, and when she does, she will only do so when they are with her. I would never tell Yetta this as I'd wind up with a room full of Madame Alexander dolls. I appreciate that my mom wants to ensure we'll use whatever she buys Z, but I get tired of answering this question over and over again.
  
• What is Z turns out to be a boy? Both moms are asking this question incessantly. I'm so annoyed by the implications of this question that I can't even answer it. I just ignore it. I mean seriously, the sex isn't important to us. As I've said before, we've started thinking of Z as a girl, so it will mean revamping our thinking. But I know as soon as we see the baby we'll be so happy to hold Z in our arms that we won't care if she has a vagina or if he has a penis.
• Do you think you will have another ultrasound? This one has become Yetta's new favorite. She is very invested in having a granddaughter, so she seems to want some sort of guarantee that Z is, in fact, 100% girl. While C and I won't be disappointed if Z turns out to be a boy, I know that Yetta will, and that makes me very, very sad.
  

Lest anyone think I'm being overly hormonal or altogether unreasonable, I'm actually quite happy to talk about Z with either my mom or C's mom, and most of their questions don't annoy me at all. It is just starting to feel as though they are both hung up on her sex--Yetta because she wants a granddaughter so desperately and my mom because she's afraid I'm going to be disappointed.

Three questions I'm trying to not get irritated over. . .

1. "Are you sure the baby is a girl?"--Nope, and we won't be sure until Z is born and doesn't have male genitalia.

2. "What will you do if the baby is a boy?"--Um, I don't know, maybe name him, take him home, and love him just as much as we would if he were a girl.

3. "Won't you be disappointed if the baby is a boy?"--No! I mean, sure, we've thought about a girl and we've talked about a girl, so on some level, we're prepared for a girl. But if Z turns out to be a boy, I will absolutely thrilled.

I'll give you three guess who has been asking these annoying questions, and I bet most of you only need one.

Warning

The following was written by a cranky, tired, dissertating, pregnant woman.

I am so tired of hearing the following two questions/comments, and I'm only half way through my pregnancy. As I recall, I was annoyed by these same questions/comments when I was carrying Wild Man.

1. How are you feeling?
2. You're how far along? You look great!

The first question annoys me just because it seems like the only thing people can think to ask me. This time around I'm inclined to say something along the lines of "Well, I've got to have a complete draft of my dissertation finished in 7 weeks. I'm a bit stressed out, but thanks for asking." I know, however, that isn't what most people are asking about.

The second question/comment annoys me because it always strikes me as a back-handed sort of compliment. I always want to say "Thanks, but did you expect me to look awful?"

And, as I know I'm likely to get comments on the people's good intentions when they make these sorts of comments, I know people don't intend for me to respond as I do to these comments. Most people make these comments out of interest and concern, which I way I never respond how I want to. I just wish I didn't find the comments so annoying.

The oddities of Facebook

So after years of resisting, I joined Facebook this fall. I confess I did it mainly because I had lost the email address of one of my dearest, lifelong friends (this person was my maid of honor and we've been friends since we were 8), and I knew she was on FB. I expected to use FB to find her and that would be that. Well lo and behold, a lot of my friends from Southwest College Town are also on FB, and using FB has become a great way to keep in touch with them. I've also found it extremely useful to communicate with several of these friends who are also completing their dissertations from afar. We've become one another's support group so to speak.

I've also some how managed to reconnect with a bunch of people from high school. I have to admit that I find this odd. I did not enjoy high school. My reasons for not enjoying high school are complex and difficult to explain; suffice to say, they go beyond the typical reasons. I was fairly popular and had lots of friends; I was never ostracized or mistreated by those who were more popular, nor did I mistreat others in return. In a nutshell, I lost a lot of friends in my senior year, people who had claimed to be among my best friends, because I did not attend church, did not consider myself a Christian, and had a close relationship with a teacher who had us read things that challenged the beliefs of many of my peers (apparently most high schoolers don't read Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth or talk about the "Christian myth"). While I'm happy to reconnect with some people from high school, I find it utterly amazing that people whom I rarely spoke with in high school or the very individuals who cut me out of their lives because of the above described situation have now asked to be my FB friend. I have no idea how to respond to this. I am, I think, a very, very loyal friend, but I don't respond to betrayal of any kind well. I also really dislike hypocrisy and can hold a grudge. I truly don't understand why some of these individuals want to know what is going on in my life some 16 years after high school ended, especially when they wanted to have little or nothing to do with me while we were in high school. I just don't get it. I mostly ignore these requests, but then, for some crazy reason, I feel guilty. I honestly think these people are just trying to amass friends so they can feel popular again. So while I like FB for lots of reasons, in some ways, it reminds me of high school all over again. And I definitely don't like that.

Two year olds

Here's another piece of useful information: toddlers do not know that they are toddlers. Most don't even know how old they are. Most don't even count yet, and if they do, they don't really know what it means. Yes, my kid is bright--he talks in complete sentences most of the time, he can take the phone apart and put it back together (literally, we have an old fashioned rotary phone, and he does take it apart), and he knows his colors and his ABCs. But, in fact, he doesn't know that he is turning 2 next month, and no, he is not excited about his birthday.

Thanks for allowing me that sarcastic rant. If it wasn't for this blog I would have ranted all over Pita, and as you all well know, that wouldn't have been a wise idea.

The Holidays

Yes, I know it is only mid-September, but C and I are already getting the "What are you doing for the holidays?" question from his family. My family, as I've said before, is more laid back (read: passive) and doesn't think about the holidays until a week before. Both approaches are annoying. So what are we doing for the holidays? I have no idea. C and I are in total disagreement, although we're not fighting about it. I've made it clear that I'll go along with whatever he wants to do, since, in truth, Christmas tends to be a bigger deal to him than it is to me. Here are our options.

1. Stay in CU Land, enjoy a white (possibly) Christmas with just the three of us. This option, as I'm sure you're all anticipating, appeals to me quite a lot. No fuss, no muss. No stress, no tension. Just me, C, and Wild Man. What could be better?

2. Travel to Home State and divide our time between the 2 families. There are actually 2 variations on this option.
A. Fly to Home State, spend about 8 days, dividing said days between our 2 families, and fly back to CU Land. This is an ok option, so long as we are able to devise a schedule before we leave CU Land and get our especially stubborn families to abide by it. The biggest issue is cost. Wild Man will be 2 by Christmas, which means no more flying for free. Do we really want to spend $800 plus to be moderately stressed out for a week. C, who desperately wants to go hunting with his brother, says yes. I say, let's think about it some more.

B. Drive to Home State, with a side trip to Mountain State where my grandparents live, spend 3 days with them, continue on to Home State, spend 6 days with them, drive back to CU Land. Although this plan would be moderately less expensive and allow me to see my grandparents, none of us wants to spend 4 days in the car with Wild Man.

3. M's sister and her family, who will have relocated to the Midwest by then, travel to CU Land to visit us for the holidays. I also like this option. Our schedule and lives are only moderately disrupted and someone actually makes an effort to come see us. C has agreed that if my sister and her hubby actually decide to do this by mid-October (yes, he's a planner) we'll with this option.

So what do we do until we decide? We deflect the questions coming from Yetta and Pita, and we continue to discuss it amongst ourselves. I also try to figure out why I let a holiday visit stress me out so much, at C's request. But then, I already know the answer to that. It stresses me out because

• I'm not in my environment.
• Wild Man is not in his environment.
• We're pulled in 18 different directions (frankly, a summer trip is just easier).
• Yetta and Pita assume total control of Christmas, making my mother, who refuses to speak up for herself, feel marginalized. Note: all three of them irritate me equally about this.
• We never get to see people we want to see. It still comes as a surprise to our families that we have friends in the city where we both grew up and went to college.
• It is just a hassle, plain and simple.

But, as I said, we don't have to decide now. I just wish I could quit thinking about it. On the upside, we aren't getting any questions about Thanksgiving--at least not since C informed his mother that Canada doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving at the same time as the U.S.

Questions NOT to ask someone whose spouse just accepted a job

Before I begin, I want to say thanks to everyone who has been so supportive of the entire job search experience. For an academic couple, there is no such thing as only one half of that couple being on the market at a time. The process, for us, has been all consuming, emotional, stressful, and exhausting. We're really happy that it ended so well. Thank you for reading and commenting, especially when I was having an "I'm feeling sorry for myself" moment.

Since C has received and accepted the job offer, we've been on the phone a lot. We've had to call people we don't normally talk to and explain the new circumstances of our life. Most people have been supportive (in fact, I'm going to write a post on how we manipulated Yetta into being supportive!), but some people have asked really stupid and annoying questions and comments. Some of the questions have come from people who are unfamiliar with academia, but not all of them. So that I don't bite the heads off of any well meaning family members or friends, I thought I'd write them down to get them out of my head.

• Why are you moving there?
• Why didn't C apply to a school closer to me?
• When will we ever see you again?
• What will Wild Man do? (this is one of my personal favorites; as if Wild Man himself must now find work in our new location! Won't he just continue being a child?)
• Are you going to start working? (this query came from my grandmother, who doesn't understand what we do at all; she also doesn't conceive of being a mother as work--having children is just what women do.)
• What exactly does C do again?
• Yuck! I would never live there!!
• So he couldn't get a better offer than that?
• You know, they get a lot of snow there. (My father, who was otherwise incredibly supportive, said this, and to be fair, he has a habit of stating the incredibly obvious.)
• Will you be able to finish your paper there? (This one came from my mom, who is wholly unable to grasp the concept of a dissertation, even though we sent her and my dad a bound copy of C's. In her mind it is nothing more than the papers I used to write for college, and for that reason, she can't understand why it is taking me so darn long to finish.)