Supadiscomama

Dear Supadiscomama,

I'm writing this to you because I know that you will tell me to shut up if I attempt to tell you any of these things in person. And frankly, I don't think I could get through this without dissolving into tears if I attempted to tell you in person.

I remember the first day we met, almost 5 years ago now. Your then boyfriend introduced us, and over lunch during orientation we chatted about grad school, life in Southwest College Town, and moving. I doubt either of us realized how close we would become and the life experiences we would share in the next five years.

I could go on and on the things we've done together (too many margaritas and cosmos to count; shopping for shoes and then baby clothes; wedding showers and baby showers; Sex and the City finales and premiers; disagreements and reconciliations; lots of gossip and even more laughs). I simply want to tell you that I will miss you more than words can express. I will miss everything about you, my dear friend, from your blunt way of putting things to the tender way you pick my son up to the way you inspire me to get to the gym. Most of all I will miss just talking to you.

As we have done so many times in our relationship I will rely on Sex and the City to say what I find I cannot say.

In Season 6, as Samantha is battling breast cancer, Carrie tells Petrovsky the following: "Samantha is my friend. She's my family. My insides. She will be fine because she has to be fine. That's how important she is to me." That is precisely how I feel about you.

Love,
M.

Do men really find pregnancy sexy?

I'm still thinking about sex and pregnancy. But now I'm wondering whether men really find pregnancy sexy? According to Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt finds pregnancy incredibly sexy, and while I do realize she is trying to promote an image of herself and of them as a couple, her comments have made me consider the sexiness of pregnancy from another angle, especially after reading "Pregnant sex brings thrills, fears." I'm not sure what I want to say about this, but I am thinking about it. Perhaps later I will have something more insightful to say, but for now, I'm throwing this out there (and I'm hoping that the few men who read this blog will actually comment): do men (and I mean real men, not Brad Pitt) actually find a pregnant woman sexy? Do most men want to have sex with their pregnant wives or girlfriends? Do men find pregnant women, whom they have no connection to, sexually attractive? I also want to point out, as Academama did in her comment on my original post, there is a difference between finding someone sexy and wanting to have sex with someone.

Freaking out

That sums up how I'm feeling lately. I'm making a concerted effort not to look at the calendar because if I did I would be forced to reckon with the reality that we will have movers in our home in under 2 weeks, which means that C leaves for CU Land in exactly 2 weeks and that Wild Man and I will be moving in with our good friends Supadiscomama, Supadiscodaddy, and Supadisco-T in 2 weeks. All of this means than in 3 weeks from tomorrow Wild Man and I board a plane for CU Land and we will be leaving all of our friends we love so much (in fact, these people are not my friends; they are my family and I really, really mean that) behind.

Add to that the fact that I have to get this damned chapter finished by the beginning of next week so I can focus on getting my house organized for moving and the million other things that have to get done, and I'm freaking out more than a little. In fact, I need to quit blogging and go to work right now. At least if I stop blogging I'm a lot less likely to start crying.

Yard sales . . .

are a pain.

That said we got rid of some junk and made some money. But I'm glad it's over.

Mommy-love

This is a common refrain in our house right now. In fact, it is usually followed by "Away, Daddy!" This means C is often left out of snuggles, hugs, and kisses as Wild Man is very much preoccupied with me. This also means that I cannot check email, sit on the couch, water my plants, wash dishes, or even go to the bathroom out of Wild Man's eyesight. I'm glad my son loves me so much, but sometimes I just need a bit more space. I was reminded of this need for space this morning as I was editing a passage of my Phelps chapter. In The Story of Avis, Avis, who is a painter, is forced to lock her young son out of her studio at one point just so she can steal a few hours to work on a painting. When she unlocks the studio door, "Van, all paint and patience, like a spaniel lies curled upon the floor, with his lips against the studio-door. The stout little lover, faithful in exile, has lain and kissed the threshold till he has kissed himself asleep."

The Sexiness of Pregnancy

I logged on to People.com this morning (yes, yes, I know; I'm colluding in the celebrity nature of our culture.) and saw this headline: "Jessica Alba on Pregnancy: 'I Never Felt Less Sexy." This comes after Vanity Fair's recent interview with Angelina Jolie in which she declares "[Pregnancy] makes me feel like a woman. It makes me feel that all the things about my body are suddenly there for a reason. It makes you feel round and supple, and to have a little life inside you is amazing. . . I’m fortunate. I think some women have a different experience depending on their partner. I think that affects it. I happen to be with somebody who finds pregnancy very sexy. So that makes me feel very sexy.” This got me thinking; does the average woman (and no, I don't think either Jessica Alba or Angelina Jolie are the average woman) feel sexy during pregnancy?

I enjoyed my pregnancy with Wild Man (for the most part), and I suppose I felt sexier for a period. But by the end, which I think is really the part that most women remember the most vividly, I felt far from sexy. Is it now fashionable to spin pregnancy as sexy, or is it, indeed, sexy for some women?

Weaned

Wild Man has been officially weaned for well over a month now, and to be honest, I've avoided blogging about it because I've been surprised by my reaction. I didn't want to wean Wild Man, but as I discussed here I felt like I needed to wean him prior to the research trip I took in June. I didn't want to be away for a week, leaving C to figure out how to handle Wild Man's requests for Mommy and to nurse. By the time we weaned completely Wild Man was only nursing in the evening, but he was still nursing to sleep at least three times a week. Before we could wean completely we had to teach him how to put himself to sleep, which was surprisingly easy. Our trip to CU Land, however, delayed the process because we were in a strange place, and Wild Man was sleeping on a pallet on the floor, not in a crib. In fact, during that trip, he ended up sleeping with us a lot, so even though we had planned to spend that week weaning completely, we didn't wean him until the week before I left for my research trip.

While I was gone, Wild Man apparently only for Mommy a few times at bedtime, and he didn't ask about nursing at all. When I returned, however, he immediately asked to nurse at bedtime, and he wasn't too pleased when I replied "No, you're a big boy, and you don't need to nurse anymore." This continued for a few days, but by the end of the week, he seemed to have forgotten about nursing altogether and hasn't asked about it since. His reaction didn't surprise me, but mine did.

Leading up to my trip I had dreaded weaning. I did not want to wean him, and I knew that if I wasn't going away for a week I probably wouldn't have. I expected to miss those quiet moments we shared together in the evening. I expected my breasts to fill up, to need to pump while I was gone, and to leak for weeks afterward. I expected to cry. And I expected that I would need to fight the urge to nurse him when he asked for it. But none of that happened. I did (and do) miss that time with Wild Man, but I didn't cry, I didn't feel emotional, I didn't miss the actual nursing itself. My body didn't respond at all either--no swelling, no engorgement, no need to pump, no leaking. I didn't want to start nursing again as soon as I saw my son either. In fact, what I felt more than anything was an overwhelming sense of relief. After 9 months of pregnancy and 19 months of breastfeeding, I felt like my body was my own again. And I like that feeling. All in all, I'm pleased that weaning was much less traumatic on both of us than I had anticipated.

Sensitive Boy

Last week, when I picked Wild Man up from school, one of his friends Emmie was crying. She had just woken up from her nap about 10 minutes before I arrived (I so wish Wild Man napped as long as Emmie does; 3 plus hours on average! The teachers often have to wake her up so she can join the other kids for snack time). She was crying because the teacher had asked her to put her puppy in her cubby so she wouldn't get him covered in strawberries, which was the snack time food of the day. When Wild Man noticed Emmie crying, he immediately walked away from where he and I stood by the door and gave her a hug. He then returned to me and told me "Emmie sad, Mommy." I thought "how sweet," told his teachers good-bye, and took him to the car. About 5 minutes into our drive home, Wild Man began crying. When I asked him what was wrong he said "Emmie sad. Emmie need hug." My sensitive boy was crying because he had left his friend crying and he wanted to make her feel better. I again thought "how sweet," and I immediately shared the story with C when we got home.

I've thought about this event a bit over the past few days, and the more I think about it the more it bothers me. Here's why: I see so much of myself in my child. He is thoughtful (well, as thoughtful as a toddler can be), sensitive, kind, independent, determined, curious, and loving. But he is also willful, stubborn, demanding, abrupt, and sensitive. Yes, I listed sensitive twice, which I admit seems sort of odd, especially given that I've listed it along side the not so great traits my son and I share. I do want my son to be sensitive to other people's feelings and sensitive to the world around him. But I do not want him to be overly sensitive. I was an overly sensitive child--I would cry at the drop of a hat. I would cry when I was in trouble, I would cry when I was mad, I would cry when I was sad, I would cry when my friends were in trouble or sad. You get the picture: anytime I felt any sort of emotion (other than happiness) I would cry. And I don't just mean a few tears. I mean loud, blubbering crying that left my face red and blotchy for hours. My siblings, in fact, called me "cry-baby." This wasn't just a phase either. I reacted this way well into high school and college. As I've gotten older, I've become able to control my tendency to cry (especially once I realized that many people regard crying as a form of emotional manipulation, even though I don't cry on purpose; it truly is an emotional response in my case), but I am still a self-described crier. But I don't want my son to be so sensitive that he cries at the drop of a hat; this is one trait that I don't want him to share.

C and I talked about this recently, and he asked me point blank if this is a gender thing for me. I seriously considered that: would I be concerned about crying and sensitivity if Wild Man were a girl? Am I concerned that he will be labeled the overly sensitive boy, a label that could be damaging for various reasons? The answer is no. This isn't about gender for me; if he were a girl, I'd likely be more concerned about sensitivity and crying. I don't want him (or any subsequent children, assuming we have more) to be as fragile as I was as a child. I want him to be sensitive and aware of his emotions without allowing them to overwhelm him, as I really think I did. I don't want people to be fearful of telling him things because they're concerned he'll start crying. I want to figure out a way to preserve his sensitivity while encouraging him to have a thicker skin than I did.

Being "Smart"

Anastasia has a very interesting post about telling her daughter Kizzy she is smart. I won't try to sum up her point, but it got me thinking about my own childhood, how C and I praise Wild Man, and what traits of mine Wild Man has inherited.

As Anastasia points out, many academics were told as children they were smart. While this wasn't the case in my family (my parents are not big praisers; I can count on my hands the number of times my mother has told me she was proud of me, but that's a separate issue), I can relate to this. I was told in school that I was smart, my grandparents told me I was smart, and I was on the advanced placement track in high school. I knew I was smart. School was something I excelled at, plain and simple. In retrospect, I excelled at lots of things, but I wasn't really encouraged. Since doing well in school didn't force my parents to get involved in other activities, it was acceptable. I put much more pressure on myself than my parents ever did. In fact, my mom tells people that I was never punished for bringing home a bad grade because I would always come home in tears and immediately begin studying harder. In contrast, my sister, who is also very smart, didn't care a lot about school. She wanted to have fun and be with her friends (things I also wanted to do, but as my friends were as "smart" as I was, we usually ended up studying together). My sister could have done much better in school if she wanted to. At some point in our childhoods, my sister decided she was the pretty one, and I decided I was the smart one. These labels have haunted us through adulthood and make our own relationship difficult.
My sister has passed some of these hang ups onto her own kids by constantly telling her daughter how pretty and smart she is, and telling her son he is so handsome and smart. I know that she is trying to give them the sense of positive self-esteem that she feels our parents, particularly our mother, didn't give to us. But I've always found her constant mantras of positive self-esteem somewhat troubling and, truth be told, irritating.

With Wild Man, C and I do not tell him he is smart. I mean he is a toddler, so he doesn't yet understand smart. We do praise him when he figures things out, and we do teach him things. But we don't try to pressure him at all. When Yetta and Pita were here a few weeks ago, they constantly commented on how smart Wild Man is and how much he knows in comparison to his cousins. I felt that their statements were more about the way we parent as opposed to the way C's brother and sister-in-law parent than they were about Wild Man. On the day before she left, however, Yetta told C and I that she really thinks Wild Man has above average intelligence and she really thinks we need to encourage that as much as possible.

Here's the thing: it is impossible to tell how "smart" Wild Man is right now. He is 20-months old. Yes, he is learning his letters, his shapes, and his numbers. He listens really well, loves to draw, and will "read" books for up to an hour. He has a rather large vocabulary and is beginning to be able to identify feelings. But he also loves to run, jump, and tumble, and he still has temper tantrums, mood swings, and meltdowns. I was really put off by Yetta's willingness to label his as "extraordinary" because most of his abilities are a product of being in our house. C and I are both academics, so we encourage him to read, to look at pictures, and to figure things out on his own. I don't want him to be labeled as anything--at least not right now. I definitely don't want him to label himself in comparison to others as I did. I want him to know that he will succeed and fail at many things in life, and all of those successes and failures will make him a better person. Most of all, I really just want him to figure things out for himself. I don't want a role or an identity to be imposed on him. So C and I will try not to emphasize one trait over another.

*Incidentally, C was known as an athlete, and even almost 20 years after he graduated from high school, the people he grew up with still think of him that way. And while he loves sports, he feels like this was a path that was chosen for him. As a result, his decision to become an art historian wasn't received very well by his parents (especially his father) or lots of his hometown friends. He also wants Wild Man to figure out things for himself.

Women and Fertility

This morning I clicked on MSNBC's Women's Health page, as I often do, to peruse the headlines and see if there was anything I wanted to read. I found an article entitled "Not ready for baby? Protect your fertility." Before I could stop myself I clicked on the link and read the opening paragraph:

You've yet to hear a single tick-tock, but lurking beneath your killer abs is a biological clock that will start buzzing eventually — and you can only hit the snooze button so many times.

The rhetoric of these types of articles makes me livid for several reasons. I am really tired of the rhetoric of fear that pervades all articles, news shows, and even many commercials about babies, children, fertility, and women trying to get pregnant. Most women know that if they want to have children they have a limited window. Do really need to remind them that they "can only hit the snooze button so many times?" Is is possible for a writer to invent a better (and perhaps more appropriate) metaphor? Can we have articles about men needing to have babies before they're at risk of throwing their backs out when they pick them up?

Granted this article actually focuses on proactive ways women can "protect" their fertility, but even the use of the word "protect" creates the idea of fear. This sort of rhetoric is troubling to me because it implies that women are supposed to have babies, that women who have children when they're older are abnormal, and that all women are dying to have babies. And this just isn't the case.

Jennie

A few weeks ago, one of my bloggy friends, Jennie, and I realized that we actually live with in driving distance of one another. Since I'm about to relocate to another country soon, we decided we should seize the opportunity and meet. So on Saturday C and I loaded Wild Man into the car (and all the paraphernalia that it takes to keep him amused for an hour and a half car ride), and we spent a wonderful day with Jennie, who blogs at My Handful, and her family. It was so great to actually meet Jennie, although it felt a bit odd to know so much about someone I've never actually met. We had a delightful time chatting while the boys played together. I was a bit sad leaving though, as I really think we could become good friends if only we weren't moving to the wilds of Canada.

Thanks for having us over, Jennie. We all had such a good time--in fact, C is trying to convince me to buy Wild Man a slip 'n slide to use for the rest of the summer. But I actually think he wants one for himself.

A love letter to C

Today is C and my eighth wedding anniversary. As I said to him yesterday, some days it seems like only yesterday that we were married, and other days it seems like we've been married forever. I honestly have to struggle to remember my life before C was a part of it. We started dating over 11 years ago (the 12th anniversary of our first date is in October). I realized yesterday that we've spent over a third of our lives together. He is a wonderful husband, father, and friend. I love him for so many reasons; here are just a few.

• I can be a bit much at times, and he reminds me not to take myself so seriously.
• He is my biggest supporter, especially in terms of my work. He often listens to me expound on my academic inadequacies, but he also encourages me to remember that I am smart, capable, and hard-working.
• He makes really good grilled cheese sandwiches.
• He fries an egg just the way I like it.
• Sometimes he gets up with Wild Man (who tends to wake up at the ungodly hour of 6:00 am), closes the door to our bedroom, and lets me sleep in.
• He gives me a big hug when I do the same for him.
• He tells me to go out with my friends more often.
• He goes to the grocery store.
• He stays home with Wild Man when he is sick so I can keep working on my dissertation.
• He wipes off the floor under Wild Man's chair every night after dinner.
• He hangs clothes out on the clothesline for me.
• He rubs my feet regularly and rarely complains that I almost never return the favor.
• He recently apologized for making me move to another country.
  
• He is my partner in every sense of the word.
• He loves me, with all my quirks and neuroses and oddities. In fact, sometimes I think he loves me because of those things.
• I love him because he is C.
  

Holy Cow!

I just read an article titled "Oh Baby! Newborn twins tip scales at 23 pounds." I've always been glad that Wild Man weighed a modest 7 pounds even at birth. Thinking of carrying twins, one who weighed over 10 pounds and the other who weighed over 12 pounds at birth, makes me nauseous and hurt. I will likely never say what I'm about to say about childbirth ever again: thank God for C-sections!

300 Posts!

Apparently some time last week, I posted my 300th post. Yay for me!!

Text Messages

If my sister sends me one more text message today, I'm going to reach through my cell phone and strangle her. I appreciate that she is busy and often doesn't have the time to call, especially considering when she does call I inevitably end up on the phone for over an hour. But I am also busy, albeit in a different way. My sister's job is high stress at various times of the day and the month; during off times, she has work to do, but she is not swamped. Thus, she has time to send 45 text messages on certain days. I'm not kidding; she wants to have entire conversations through one-line text messages. It is really, really annoying.

I know she doesn't call because she assumes I am working--as I have been today. But what she doesn't seem to understand (despite the fact that I have told her this at least twice) is that it takes a lot of time to read and respond to her text messages. And I can't just ignore them because when I do that she sends the same message over and over again until I respond. I've actually taken to telling Wild Man's teachers to call me on my office phone if there is an emergency rather than on my cell so I can turn my cell phone off and ignore my sister.

Confusion, Crying, and then Clarification

While I was on my research trip I received an email from the head of the Women's Studies program at CU, with whom I met when we visited CU Land. During that visit she had asked me to teach 1 course this fall, which I happily agreed to do. Last week's email asked me to teach a course in the fall and in the spring--courses I haven't taught before, but ones I can easily teach. Needless to say, I was very, very excited and responded immediately, telling her that I would love to teach both courses. I felt a huge sense of relief too; I felt like I had a reason to move to CU Land--not just that I was moving because my husband got a job there.

I checked my email a little while ago for the first time since Friday morning, and there was a message from the head of WS at CU Land telling me that due to operational issues she wasn't able to offer me what she told me she was going to be able to in her last email. She then told me the upper-level course on Women's Slave Narratives we'd discussed would be available for the Fall, although she didn't specify which Fall. Given the nature of the email, I assumed that both courses had been nixed due to budget issues and that she was asking me to teach in the Fall of 2009. I emailed her back and told her I understood and asked her to clarify when she wanted me to teach the upper-level course. I then called C, who is teaching today, and explained the situation to him and promptly started crying for a bunch of reasons. First, I haven't not worked since I was 18, and the idea of not working has been creating a bit of an identity crisis for me. Second, C is making a really good salary, but Canadian taxes are high. Over a third of his salary will go to taxes, so the extra money, although not essential to our survival, would have been nice. Third, I really feel like I'm coming into my own as a teacher; I'm at a place where I am confident in my teaching abilities, and I want to keep teaching. Plus, I'm a happier person, and thus, a happier wife, mother, and dissertator, when I'm teaching.

As C was listening to me and trying to reassure me that everything would be fine, I received an email from Dr. Philosophy (this is the best pseudonym I can come up with right now since I don't know this woman very well; about the only thing I do know is that she is the head of the WS program and she teaches philosophy). Apparently I overreacted to her vaguely worded email. She does want me to teach, but because of budget reasons she can't offer me the one-year, part-time appointment which she had worked out. So I will be teaching the upper-level course in the Fall. There are no guarantees for the Spring, but if the course generates interest, I will likely be offered a course in the Spring. It all worked out in my favor, thankfully, but I'm still feeling a bit frustrated that her email was so vaguely worded as to make me think I would not have a position in her program at all this year, and I also wish I was not so prone to assume the worst.

Home

I am home. It was well worth getting up at 4:15 this morning to make a 6:00 flight; I walked off the plane in Southwest College Town at 12:30. C was holding Wild Man, and it took him a few seconds to realize I was standing in front of him. When he realized it was me, he said "Mama," laughed, and literally jumped into my arms. He spent the rest of the day making sure I didn't leave his sight. We even took a nap together this afternoon. He is asleep now, and I'm looking forward to a quiet evening with my husband. I will, of course, probably be asleep very soon, but it is good to be home.

I miss my son

This is the longest I've ever gone without seeing him, and I miss my son. I've gotten a lot of work done and have a lot of fun with D, but I'm ready to go home and kiss my boy.

*Note I did not write all of the following posts today, although it does appear that way. My internet connection has been spotty, so I've written these throughout the week and have only been able to post them today.

New Haven, Day 4

Someone just handed me the original manuscript of The House of Mirth. I am in literary heaven. . .

I also just learned, after spending 45 minutes looking through the letters Wharton wrote around the time she published The House of Mirth, that I can't read French as well as I thought. Apparently if I want to read these letters I need a translator.

As I flipped the letters over I realize that Wharton reused her old typescripts. Several of the letters her secretary wrote for her in 1919 had fragments from The Age of Innocence on the back of them.

New Haven, Day 3

After a rather harrowing morning, we finally made it to New Haven. D isn't the most energetic of individuals, and she opted against going to check on the car last night after we had dinner. She didn't want to walk "that far." Her logic was that she'd parked it at the end of the block around 4:30; following the 2 hour rule, the car was safe until 10:00 this morning. When she went to get it this morning, it was gone. She called me on my cell, and I walked down to help her look for it. I read the street sign on the telephone pole right in front of where she said she'd parked it. It read "Street cleaning every 2^nd & 4^th Wednesday, April 1-Nov. 30 8 am -12 pm TOW ZONE." Yes, her car had been towed. She knows me well enough to know I was annoyed at her laziness, and I know her well enough to know that if I said too much she'd be in a foul mood for the rest of our time together. So we walked back to the apartment; she pulled out the phone book, and I got on-line. Within 5 minutes, she found the department of the Boston Police to call about towed cars, and in another 5 minutes she knew where the car was. She said she was going to take the T (the Boston subway) to get it, and I just gave her a look. (Last night, I outlined my research plan for the rest of the week, and I really didn't want to spend anymore time than was absolutely necessary to get the car back; I really wanted to get to the Beinecke in time to get through the letters Phelps wrote to George Eliot today). She caught my meaning, and she said she'd take a cab if I'd help her hail it. So we went outside, and I got her a cab; she was back with the car in about 45 minutes, and we were on our way to New Haven.

As soon as I started reading the letters Phelps wrote to Eliot, I was no longer annoyed. I hit the jackpot. Not only to these letters directly reference the publication of The Story of Avis as well as the emotional and physical toll writing the novel took on Phelps, but they include some fairly blatant statements about marriage. Most of what is in the letters is expressed in the novel itself, but having it in Phelps's own words will make my argument stronger. My entire trip was worth it just to see these 4 letters.

Tomorrow I will spend the entire day with Wharton, and although I don’t really expect to find anything new, I am so excited to look at this collection.

Phelps to Jewett

Here is a letter, which I transcribed this morning (Tuesday) that Elizabeth Stuart Phelps wrote to Sarah Orne Jewett on 14^th June 1888:

Dear girl:
Are you there? Are you anywhere? How are you? What? Where? Why? Whence? Are you strong again? Do let me know. And when will you come to see me?

Yours always lovingly,

E.S.P.

I love this letter from one friend to another. I especially like that Phelps dispenses with all the usual niceties. She just begins and asks Jewett how she is before demanding to know when she will come to see her.

Boston, Day 2

I think I should have skipped the Ph.D. and just gotten my MLS. This job looks like lots of fun. . .

Boston, Day 1

I spent the day going through the many letters of Fanny Kemble that the Houghton Library has. I'm a bit cross-eyed from trying to decipher her handwriting. I'm not sure at this point if any of the letters I transcribed will be useful in my chapter on Kemble, but as several discuss her divorce from Pierce Butler in detail, I am hoping I will at least be able to use something from them to contextualize the publication of her 1838 journal.

D and I wandered around Boston a bit this afternoon before having dinner in an Irish pub. I'd forgotten how much I like Boston. I lived an hour and a half from the city while I was working on my MA, over 8 years ago. I spent some time in Boston then, but I haven't been here since I finished my MA. It is much calmer than New York, which is a city I also love. It feels smaller to me somehow, which I know doesn't make sense. But as D pointed out, the buildings are smaller, which makes the city feel more open than New York.

This evening D let me use her computer, which has a camera installed, to chat with C and Wild Man. It was good to see my little boy, but he got a bit upset when he realized he could see me but couldn't touch me. When our connections ended abruptly (the apartment we're staying in has a very slow connection speed), he started crying, which made me want to start crying too. He seems to be doing well, and Yetta and Pita, who, for once, isn't living up to her name, are following most of my instructions. C keeps saying, "No, Wild Man can't eat that." Otherwise, things are fine. Tomorrow I start on Phelps. I'm hoping I can finish up at the Houghton in the morning before heading over to the Schlessinger Library, which is part of Radcliffe. Here's hoping I actually find something useful.

Sex and the City: The Movie

I saw the movie on Friday, and it was fabulous. It lived up to my expectations, and in some cases, even exceeded them!

Research

I left this morning for my long planned research trip to the North East. This week I will be in the archives of Harvard and Yale. I'm looking forward to the research (I mean, I'll be looking at the original manuscript of The House of Mirth and letters that Elizabeth Stuart Phelps exchanged with George Eliot), but leaving this morning was not easy at all. C's mom and sister are in town to help C out with Wild Man (I am, by the way, loving the fact that they both had to come to do all the stuff that I do!) and to keep him distracted from my absence. Wild Man knew something was up when he saw me wheel a suitcase down the hall, but he was happily playing with Aunt Pita when C and I left for the airport. I talked to C a little while ago, and Wild Man has only asked for me once. I'm happy to know that he's happy.

My friend D, who was my roommate when we were both completing our MAs, lives within driving distance to Boston, so she's decided to hang out with me for the week. While I'm at Harvard's various libraries, she's going to be finishing up the last chapter of her dissertation. Then she has graciously offered to drive me to New Haven and hang out with me there. I'm glad to have her to distract me. . . right now six days feels like an eternity.

"Sexism and the City"

My good friend Supadiscomama, who blogs at The Rhetorical Situation, and I are having a SATC extravaganza this Friday night. Along with some other lovely ladies who love the show almost as much as we do, we're going to see the movie and then have cocktails while we dish about the movie. Mr. Supadicomama and C are both fans of the show (granted neither is as ardent a fan as either of us), and both want to see the film. Given this, I was interested in the article entitled "Sexism and the City" published in this week's Newsweek. I have read no reviews of the movie and surprisingly little press (I am a fan; I didn't want to be disappointed or angered by "bad" reviews), so a lot of the article was surprising to me. Are most men so anti-SATC as this article describes? Are men so threatened by a film that has 4 women in the lead roles that they have gone on-line to give a film bad reviews, a film that most haven't seen? I don't know what to do with this. I'd like to believe that American men are more mature than this, but I have a feeling I may be wrong.

Baby-sitter success

Despite our worries, last night was a rousing success. Wild Man's baby-sitter, Miss A, who is a teacher at his school, arrived promptly at 6:00, and she listened to all of my neurotic instructions. I kept apologizing for telling her so much; I mean she took care of him for 6 1/2 hours a day for 6 months before he moved to another room. He loves her, she loves him, and they know each other. Still, C and I were both concerned that Wild Man would give her trouble, especially when it came to bed time. But he went to bed fairly easily. And as far as we can tell, she followed our instructions perfectly. She did let him stay up a little later than usual, but I had told her that was ok. Miss A played with him while C and I finished getting ready, and then she started giving him his bath just as we were leaving. Wild Man apparently conned her into reading way more than the allotted 4 books before bedtime, but he was in his crib by 7:40, which is only a little later than usual. He didn't fall asleep right away, which isn't out of the ordinary. He didn't, however, ask for me or ask to nurse, which is huge. He was asleep by 8:00, and Miss A said she spent the next hour watching TV. As C and I drove away, we looked at each other and said, "This is really weird" at the same time. I kept my cell phone on the table throughout dinner, which was super tasty, but she never called. After dinner, we walked around a local fountain for a bit and just talked. It was so nice to put on perfume and a heels, to have a nice meal and to drink a fancy cocktail, and to talk to my husband without worrying if Wild Man was going to try to eat the table cloth, dump ketchup on himself, or have a meltdown. I'm not sure why we haven't done that before, but if Miss A is willing, we're definitely going to do it again.

All in all, it was a wonderful birthday!

A night out

Today is my birthday, and C and I have decided to be extravagant. We've actually hired a baby-sitter, something we've never done before. Wild Man and I just spent the last 45 minutes going through my closet determining which shoes go best with the dress I'm going to wear. Yes, that's right--I'm wearing a dress and heels, we're going out to a fancy restaurant for my birthday, and we hired a baby-sitter all in the same night!

Notes from CU Land

Overall our trip to CU Land was a rousing success. It was stressful, as we tried to cram as much as we could into the 4 days we were there. We looked at about 20 town houses/houses with a real estate agent and 2 rental properties; we visited 3 schools for Wild Man (I wanted to visit another one that was highly recommended by one of the faculty members in C's department, but we ran out of time); and we drove over the entire city at least 3 times in the process of accomplishing these things. Wild Man had a few meltdowns, but overall, he was a dream. I mean, by the end of every day, I was a bit cranky by how much time we'd spent in the car, so I totally understood why he was cranky too. Here are a few highlights from our trip.

• The chair of C's department, whom I am naming Dr. Nice Guy, and his wife, Mrs. Nice Lady, were wonderful. They went out of their way to make us feel welcome and to answer any and all questions we had. Dr. Nice Guy even drove C around town one evening and helped him determine the best areas for us to look at homes.
  
• First, Dr. Nice Guy convinced one of the grad students in the department, who is out of the country for the summer, to let us stay in her house so we didn't have to stay in a hotel room. This was extremely generous of this woman, especially considering all her furniture is vintage (on a side note, the house was cute, but the interior looked like a page out of Architectural Digest circa 1950; everything was retro-modern, including the 1950s toaster that I'm certain she stole from my grandmother!), and one of the house guests was a 19-month-old. Having a kitchen and a yard made our lives much, much easier. In fact, we only ate out twice during our entire stay, and Wild Man burnt off lots of energy pulling Dr. Nice Guy's son's wagon around the back yard.
• Second, Dr. Nice Guy pestered the dean into pestering the head of the Women's Studies department into meeting with me. I went into this meeting with no guarantees of a job and came out 45 minutes later with the promise of a part-time gig. It seems that CU doesn't have anyone who can tackle both race and gender in literature, and apparently their Women's Studies students are very interested in such issues. I quickly explained that I had in fact taught all the courses on my CV. The head of Women's Studies was confused because technically my title is Teacher's Assistant; she thought I had graded for all the courses (about 8 different courses). Once I explained I had taught every one of them myself, she said, "Well, so tell me what you can teach at CU." After brainstorming for about 10 minutes, she asked me to teach a course on Women's Slave Narratives, so I'm very, very excited. She's supposed to get back to me by mid-June to let me know if I'll start in the Fall or the Spring, but either way, I know I will be teaching sooner rather than later.
• Third, Mrs. Nice Lady, who is a teacher at a secondary school in CU Land, explained the Canadian school system to me. By Wednesday, I was getting very, very frustrated with our real estate agent, whom I felt was being dismissive about my questions regarding school districts. She kept saying, "Well, it all depends on where you want to send him. . ." and then would change the subject. It seems that CU Land only has 1 school district, which is very, very good (Mrs. Nice Lady has sent me the stats via email, and I'm really impressed). But we can choose to send Wild Man to public school, Catholic school, or French-immersion school. Catholic schools are fully subsidized by the provincial government, and many of these are very good. I didn't know this, so every time the real estate agent said, "It depends on if you choose public or Catholic school" I wanted to throttle her. Once Mrs. Nice Lady explained this, I suddenly understood: I was asking the wrong questions. C and I have since learned enough to decide that if we're in CU Land long enough we will send Wild Man to the French immersion school, which is essentially a magnate school. It is part of the public school system, but we have to sign him up for the school about a year in advance.
  

Overall, I returned to Southwest College Town relieved. CU Land is a place we will be happy. Now I just have to prep for my upcoming research trip to the Northeast, pack up our house, and finish the Phelps chapter and make good headway on the Kemble/Wilson chapter before we move in August.

We've returned

We got in late last night (well, 9:00, but that is late when you have a toddler with you!) from our trip to CU Land. I'll be writing a lot about it in the next week. After several frustrating days of looking at horrific townhomes and houses that need major renovations, we finally found a 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath townhome on Thursday morning (our last day in CU Land) that we loved. In fact, it was so much nicer than anything else we'd seen that we put in an offer. We heard from our real estate agent late yesterday afternoon, and our offer has been accepted. Barring any complications with the mortgage, we have a home! And to make the trip even better, I found out that I will be teaching a course in the Women's Studies Department. I am equally excited and relieved about our upcoming move.

The Moving Saga continues

We leave on Sunday to visit CU Land; we will be there until Friday. The list of things we have to do while we're there keeps getting longer and longer. In an attempt to stop thinking of all of this so I can actually get some work done today I've decided to compile of list of moving issues that are currently stressing me out. I'm hoping that getting all of this down will ease some of my stress so I can get a few pages written today.

• On Sunday evening, as we pass through customs in CU Land we have to apply for C's restricted work permit (he is only legally allowed to work at CU), my unlimited work permit (mine will be attached to his, and I am allowed to work any place that will hire me), and Wild Man's visa (I'm not clear on what sort of visa this is, but apparently he has to have one to be a part of the Canadian health care system). We land around 6:30, which is dinner time for Wild Man. We have no idea how long this will take, and apparently the entire process is contingent upon our customs agent. If we get a nice customs agent, it will go smoothly; if we get a mean one, we could be there for hours.
• C spoke with the movers yesterday, and he learned that we may not be able to take our car into Canada. Apparently, Canadian Customs can refuse to allow a car that was purchased in another country and has a loan through said country into their country. I totally get the purpose of this; Canada is trying to prevent its citizens from crossing into the U.S. to buy a car without paying Canadian taxes, which are substantially higher. But come on! We're already decided to get rid of one car. There is no way we can afford to buy a car once we get to Canada, so this also has me freaked out. C has to fill out a million customs forms on our car, but apparently we could be told that we can take our car into Canada only to be told no at the border. I'm learning that border agents and customs agents have a lot of power.
• We've decided to buy a town house. We've done lots and lots of research on this and feel fairly confident this is a good idea and will be a good investment. We've rule out a house because to get into the school district we want we can't afford a house, but we can afford a nice town house. I'm getting stressed out about trying to find a house we like, put a bid, and do the paperwork in 4 days.
• We also have to look at schools for Wild Man. This was a difficult process when we did it in Southwest College Town, and he wasn't even born then. We visited day cares and selected the one we liked the best when I was 8 months pregnant. I've spent so much time on-line researching schools in the past two weeks that I'm beginning to think I could write a dissertation on daycares in CU Land. This is a big source of stress because he is so happy where he is. I really hate that we have to move him.
• C was finally given access to CU's library database, and I spent about an hour on-line yesterday trying to determine how extensive their literature section is. Let me say that C will be ILLing a lot of books for me. I'm also asking my parents to give me cash for my birthday so that I can start buying the books I use regularly. Apparently CU isn't so big on nineteenth-century American literature. Go figure.

Well that helped more than I would have thought. I am now going to try to figure out what I have to say about Phelps, nature, and transcendentalism.

Wild Man's Entourage

A few months ago, on a trip to Old Navy, Wild Man picked out a stuffed dog that he quickly became very attached to (brown moppy animal pictured in the foreground of the picture). Within days of purchasing said dog, which Wild Man rescued out of the clearance bin, he was carrying it around everywhere and sleeping with it. He became so attached to it that I had my mom, who lives in a different time zone, scour her local Old Navy for extras. Luckily she was able to find two, so Wild Man also keeps a "Puppy" at school and we have a back-up.

About 3 weeks ago, Wild Man decided he needed to sleep with extra friends, and slowly, he began adding animals, positioning them in key places around his crib. First he added Patches the Bear and Ox the Ugly Doll; then came Bob the Brachiosaurus, Chompers the purple T-Rex, Pop, Duckie, Pooh, and Paddington. He then added Penny the baby doll and Spot the kitten. He still holds Puppy while he sleeps, but he also needs all of these friends. If one is missing or not in the correct place, he won't go to sleep. Yesterday he was home with a stomach bug, and he insisted on carrying each animal, individually, to the living room so they would be near him while he colored and we read books. My son has an entourage.

Moving

So here is the reality of my life right now: moving sucks. I know that most of us feel this way, so let me add another element to it: moving to another country sucks.

Don't want to work

Despite the fact that I submitted part of my Phelps chapter to my advisor yesterday and that she has already read and commented on the first 10 pages, I really just don't want to work today. My advisor pointed out an organizational problem that not only helps this chapter but will also help the rest of my dissertation. One would think I'd be excited and ready to get to work. I'm not. I'd rather be doing any number of things. Instead I'm reading and taking notes on Catharine Beecher's A Treatise on Domestic Economy. My life is so exciting.

I wish I had been there!

Sex and the City: The Movie had its world premiere last night in London, and I so wish I had been there!

From 37 pages to 46 pages in the blink of an eye

At my friend Lilian's advice, I decided to figure out what Southwest College's rules on formatting the dissertation are sooner rather than later. I figured if I set my margins now that is one less thing I have to do later. Suddenly my Wharton chapter, which has been stalled at 37 pages for months (as you recall I left Wharton behind to work on Phelps), is now 46 pages, and my Phelps chapter, which was only 19 pages, is now 25. All of a sudden, I feel like I've made some serious progress today. Thanks for the tip, Lilian!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers I know and love!

Oh, Canada!

As most of the regular readers already suspect (and many of you know), we are moving to Canada. C was offered and accepted a tenure-track position at a medium-sized research university in Canada. CU (Canadian University) is in a medium sized city, which is relatively close to the U.S. border. We will be returning to the Eastern time zone, although we will not be returning to the East Coast, which is ultimately where we'd like to end up. C received word yesterday that CU has mailed the contract to him; he should get it on Monday. With that knowledge, I feel a bit more comfortable revealing the approximate location of our new home. Frankly, I was a bit worried about jinxing everything!

We are alternately excited and stressed out about the move. Our lives are going to change dramatically. C will be making significantly more money than both of us are making now (but, given that I'm a grad student and he is a full-time adjunct, that isn't really hard to do), but we're still a bit worried about finances because the cost of living in CU Land is somewhat higher. I have good leads on adjunct work, and there is a serious possibility that the English Department at CU will offer me a part-time position for the Spring. The Dean of the College of Liberal Arts is a from Southwest College State, and she has a nephew who attends Southwest College. She seems very eager to help me given this connection between our families. She has, in fact, shopped my CV around at the affiliate schools (CU seems to operate a bit like Oxford or Cambridge; it has affiliate schools for specific areas, including a teaching college and a women's college. Each of the schools has an English department, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that one of these schools will show interest in my CV and want me to teach at least one class there in the fall.). But for the time being, unless something else comes up, we've decided that I will stay home and focus on my dissertation. Daycare is significantly more expensive in CU Land, so Wild Man will either be staying home with me or he will go part-time. C and I have talked endlessly about a schedule, and I'm fairly certain we can make such a plan work (after all if our friends Solon and Megsg-h at The Rhetorical Situation can make it work while both of them are dissertating, we definitely can!). The Dean has also assured C that the English Department will consider me for partner placement when I'm finished, so that is even more motivation for me to keep on task and get work done.

For now, we're trying to figure out our living situation (we're debating whether to buy in the first year or wait a year) and determining what it means to be Americans living in Canada (we've still got to figure out how to get absentee ballots as CU wants C to apply for permanent residency as soon as we get there). C asked me last night if this makes us expatriates, and I told him I have no idea (Lilian, any thoughts on this?). We are, apparently, emigrating, which is not something I'd ever thought we'd do. I do know that we're in for one interesting adventure.

Summertime

Summer has arrived in Southwest College Town. This past weekend we took Wild Man to the splash pad, and he had lots of fun. In fact, we had to forcibly take him away from the fountains as he was visibly shivering but didn't want to stop playing. Looking at these pictures made me smile so much that I wanted to share them.

Have I mentioned recently how much I love my child?

*Poof! These photos have disappeared.

Sinking in

The reality that we're moving in just over 2 months is beginning to sink in. With that realization, I'm experiencing a lot of mixed emotions. I'm genuinely happy about this move for more reasons that I can count. The biggest reason is that this is a smart move for C, for his career, and for our family. Regardless of whether or not I'm ever offered a position at University X, this is a great job for C's career. If I'm not offered a position and we do end up moving again in the next few years for my career, this job makes C incredibly marketable and will make him much more attractive to any school that would hire me. I'm also excited about this location, about getting to know a new place, and about living in a new environment. The list could go on and on.

Despite my excitement and my belief that we are making the right decision, I'm not excited about leaving the Southwest College Town we've come to think of as home. When we moved here almost 5 years ago, we never would have thought we'd be so happy here. It is a relatively conservative community, in a very conservative state. It doesn't feel like a college town at all; in fact, it feels more like Strip Mall Town. It has all of the negatives of small town life, without many of the positives of living in a city. But it has many things that we've grown to love. We have a community of friends, many of whom we've come to think of as family. I can name about 12 people that I will be heartbroken not to see on a regular basis. In some ways, I think of these friends as people I've grown up with. We've all weathered the many dramas of graduate school together, had children around the same time, and become an integral part of each others' lives. I also have a lot of affection for this place because it is where C and I decided to become parents and where Wild Man was born. It is impossible to drive around this town without thinking "That's where Wild Man did X for the first time." Leaving SCT will be one of the hardest things I've ever done. One of the things that bothers me most about the profession we've chosen is that it requires us to move to places that we may not want to move to, to put down roots in said place, and then to leave that place. C and I love what we do, but I truly hope we don't have to move too many more times in our careers.

I really hate it when . . .

I can't remember why I thought I needed to consult specific books. I've spent the entire morning skimming 5 different books (2 of which I recalled) that I checked out of the library, and I'll be damned if I can remember why I thought I needed to look at them. Each is interesting and has shed some light on the time period I study, but none have yet proven to be specifically helpful to me. I have no idea what I was thinking.

Are you Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte or Samantha?

Since I'm focused on all things Sex and the City lately, Supadiscomama from The Rhetorical Situation directed directed me to a quiz that helped me determine which SATC lady I am most like. I am 50% Miranda, 40% Carrie, and 10% Charlotte. I'm sort of disappointed that I am not at all like Samantha, but I think I knew that already. Given my tendency toward cynicism, I'm not really surprised by the results. Miranda has always been my favorite character. And given the results of the quiz I took yesterday, it makes perfect sense?

Oxymoron, I'm dying to know which SATC lady you most resemble!

One more question

Here is another question that I'd love to hear from all my family and friends about our upcoming move:

When can we visit?

Only 28 days . . .

until Sex and The City: The Movie opens, and I am so excited. In fact, this morning I went to the website and read everything I could about it. I even took a very, very fun quiz to determine which SATC man I would be most compatible with. No surprise (especially for those of you who personally know C): I am most compatible with Steve. If you're a SATC fan, take the quiz and let me know who your most compatible with.

Questions to ask

At Academama's suggestion, I've composed a list of questions to ask the spouse of someone who has just accepted a tenure track position.

• How fantastic! Are they willing to consider partner placement? (Ok, so this question assumes that the questioner has some knowledge of academia.)
• What are the schools like?
• What sort of exciting things are there for us to do when we come to visit you in your new home?
• Will you be able to afford to take some time off and focus solely on your dissertation?
• When can we come visit?
• Do you need any help moving?
• That sounds like a really great opportunity for your family. Are you excited?
• I bet you're really excited, but I imagine you're also feeling a little overwhelmed. It is going to be hard for you all to leave College Town, isn't it? (I'd only welcome this question from someone I know really well, as it would likely make me burst into tears, but more on that later.)
• Wow! Won't you all have fun teaching Wild Man to build a snow man?
• So, when are you going to let Wild Man start participating in extreme winter sports?
• M, you have to wear a sweater in an air conditioned room! Should we go shopping for some warmer clothes?
• Do you think Wild Man will adopt the local accent?

Ok, so admittedly, some of these questions are pretty lame, and I have to say probably not the humor that Academama was looking for while she recovers from her recurring neck problems (sorry, Academama!). But these questions are supportive and understanding and suggest that the questioner is actually excited for us and understanding that this has not been an easy process or decision for us.

Manipulating Yetta

In the 7 years that C and I have been married, I've learned how to manipulate my mother-in-law to my advantage. She is, when all is said and done, an immensely practical woman. When she was despairing about our new location, I decided to tackle the problem head on and get her on our side. I went to google maps and determined the mileage from our current residence to Home State, to the school C said no to, and to University X (sorry, I'm still working on a better pseudonym). The results:

College Town to Home State: 1,144 miles

No School to Home State: 1,116

University X to Home State: 1,001

When C shared this news with her, Yetta got excited. C also took it one step further. Knowing his mother hates to fly, he figured out that she can take 3 different routes to University X, which means she gets to see three different areas (each route is essentially the same distance) that she's never seen before. When he told her that, she got really excited. Now she is busy planning her first visit and has ceased saying things like "Why can't you just find a job at Home State U?" Hooray for manipulations!

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.)
  

A decision has been reached

C has made a decision. He has accepted one offer and turned down the other (a very surreal experience, he informed me). We finally know where we will be in the fall, which is a big relief to me. He still hasn't signed the official contract (although he has received a letter of intent from the dean of the college), so I'm still not prepared to talk about anything specifically yet lest I jinx us. I will say that the atmosphere in our home has been infinitely more relaxed in the past few days. I can't begin to say how lovely it was to have my entire family in the same place for an entire week!

In other news, C asked about partner placement. Although this isn't something University X (sorry, but it is the best pseudonym I can come up with at the moment) will consider until I've finished my dissertation, they will consider it then--in fact, they are writing it into his contract, something I've been told is unheard of. The dean is speaking to the English Department about me (I spent the weekend revising my CV and writing a short description of my dissertation and teaching experience), and she is trying to work out a part-time lectureship for me. These people have been really wonderful with the entire negotiation process, so wonderful that C really hasn't had to negotiate all that much. Frankly, after past several months (not to mention his entire graduate student experience), I feel like C deserves to be treated so well!

Lots of News

There is lots of news to report, most of it good. There is so much, in fact, that I'm going to resort to bullets.

• Despite my own paranoia, I am making good progress on my second chapter. I emailed my advisor last week to tell her I'd get her a draft by the end of the month, and she said that since she couldn't get to it until after she gives her final exam to work on it until the first week of May and send it then. That gives me just enough time to have a complete draft, including some sort of conclusion (I'm not always great at conclusions!).
• C received 2 job offers late last week. I'm not going to go into specifics right now because he is in the very early stages of negotiating. We do have a preference, but with so much to work out, I'm going to wait to blog about things more specifically. This comes as a big relief to C as he was beginning to wonder if he'd ever get an offer. I can't express how proud I am of him--he has worked so hard for this moment. He truly was like a different person this weekend, or rather, he was back to normal, not scrambling to get things done or feeling guilty about having to leave again. All of the stress and frustration of the past several months was worth it to see the look on his face when he realized that he had not one, but two offers.
  
• Now that he has these 2 offers, he has decided not to go to his last on-campus interview, which was scheduled for this week. It isn't a school he is very interested in, and even if he did get an offer there, he wouldn't accept it over the offers he does have. For the first time since the beginning of March, both of us will be home all week long! That is almost as exciting as the two offers!
• For the past 2 nights, Wild Man has decided that he did not want to nurse before going to sleep. In fact, last night he asked to be put in his crib. He got somewhat upset when C left his room, but after a few minutes, he calmed down and put himself to sleep. It seems my boy may have decided to wean himself. I have mixed feelings about this; I'm not altogether ready for him to stop nursing. I still like having that as our special time. That said, I was planning to wean him before my research trip this summer, so if he decides to do it himself, that will certainly be much easier than forcibly weaning.
• Going against what I thought made the most sense, C has decided to discuss these offers with his family. He isn't soliciting their opinions, and he has made it clear that the do not get an opinion. They have, however, had opinions, none of them good. They don't like either offer as neither moves us considerably closer to them. It seems they all, particularly Yetta and Pita, forgot how to say "Congratulations! We're so happy for you! I can't imagine how good this must feel." Instead, Yetta rattled off a list of questions about how often we'd be able to visit and why didn't he get any interviews at schools closer to them. For her part, Pita immediately burst into tears and said "Now I'll never have a relationship with Wild Man." I must say this statement really, really irritates me. They have no concept of how lucky they are to live in the same state as their entire family for so long, and they also have no concept how lucky they are to live in the same city as C's older brother, his wife, and their two boys. But it really irritates me because of my own familial situation. I never lived in the same state as any of my extended family, but I am very, very close to my maternal grandparents, my mom's youngest sister, and several of my cousins. Yes, it takes a bit more work to have a "relationship," but it isn't impossible. So I'd like to thank my in-laws for, as usual, making life all about them.

Nap time changes

Apparently last week, while I was out of town, C and Wild Man devised a new weekend nap time routine. Previously, naps on the weekends have been hit or miss, not because Wild Man doesn't need one, rather because he has refused to take one. Nap times got to be so difficult that recently I had resorted to nursing him to sleep rather than fighting him for an hour. Even with the nursing, he would likely only sleep 45 minutes to an hour, which meant he was exhausted by 6:00 in the evening and would go to be much earlier than usual.

Well last week, C decided that nap time was going to change. Instead of forcing Wild Man into his crib, he set up a bed for him on the couch. He then surrounded him by all of his favorite stuffed animals and got his favorite blanket. C explained to Wild Man that he was tired and he needed to rest. He then told Wild Man to lay down, he read him one story, and he rubbed his back. After some initial fussing, Wild Man relaxed and was asleep within 10 minutes and slept for almost 2 hours! This worked on both Saturday and Sunday. This afternoon when we announced it was nap time, Wild Man started calling for me and even pushed his way past C to get to me. C, however, picked him up and performed the same ritual while I went to a different part of the house. It seems he fussed a bit longer today than he did last week, probably hoping I would give in and "save him," but within 15 minutes he was sound asleep and has already been asleep for almost an hour, which means I can actually get some work done on a Saturday! Hooray!

Dear Ms. M: I can't find any sources

Dear Ms. M:

I've been frantically trying to find sources for my research paper, but so far I can't find any except ones that offer a synopsis of the novel. It seems that no one has anything to say about Charles Chesnutt except Chesnutt himself. The paper is due in a week; what do I do?

Signed, Searching Unsuccessfully

Dear Unsuccessful:

I just wasted 10 minutes of my precious time (time that I'd rather have spent researching my own project) searching for sources on Chesnutt, and lo and behold, after 5 minutes on the MLA database (which, as you'll recall, I introduced you all to in class), I found over 70 sources on Chesnutt written in the last 8 years. I surveyed these quickly and emailed you several citations that I think you'll find helpful. I'm not sure why these were so hard for you to locate--perhaps it was the search term I used. After all one does not normally think to search on the title of the novel one is working on. In the future, I suggest you consult the reference librarians (which I've repeatedly told you to do) as they will be able to help you find a plethora of sources, most of which will be available in our own lovely library.

Signed, an annoyed Ms. M

Positive Signs

Things may be looking up, and a lot of the stress may be about to come to an end. I'm not ready to say anything more than that right now, but today at least, I'm in a much better state of mind.

Give me a flipping break

Ok, so I occasionally break from my previous pledge to stop reading celebrity gossip. When I saw the headline entitled "Paltrow Suffered Postpartum Depression" I wanted to read it, thinking great, another celebrity is going to openly talk about PPD making it less taboo for "ordinary" women to talk about it. Then I read the column. I don't mean to sound uncharitable or unsupportive, but if the source of Gwyneth Paltrow's PPD after her the birth of her second was that she was unable to indulge herself in the same therapeutic techniques she followed during her first pregnancy, I am so not sympathetic. If everyone got PPD as a result of not having regular acupuncture and massages (yes, you read that correctly), we'd all be in a hell of a lot more trouble.

The Sources of Stress

Because I like reminding myself that I am stressed out, here are the sources of my stress:

• C left for yet another on-campus interview today. So far he has been on 5 (including this one), and as of yet, he still does not have a job offer. We were both really hoping that he'd get an offer from one of the 3 schools he is really interested in late last week or early this week so he didn't have to go on any more interviews.
• I've been officially been working on my dissertation for just over a year, and thus far, I only have a draft of one chapter. I'm disappointed in my progress.
• C's car, which used to be my car, is leaking oil everywhere. We either need to buy a new car (which is only an option if he gets a job) or put a new engine in it (which will cost us at least $1,200).
• My annoying fellow graduate students keep recalling books that I'm using for the chapter I'm currently working on.
• I only have 10 pages written for the chapter I'm currently working on.
• My house desperately needs to be cleaned--as in I can write my name in the dust on our bookshelves and the kitchen floor is gray instead of white.
• I don't know how C is going to cope if he doesn't get an offer. He is already second guessing everything he said or did at every single interview, and he is feeling more than a bit discouraged. I can only offer so much encouragement too; he knows how much I know about the academic job market, so lots of times my encouragement comes off as patronizing, even though I don't intend to be patronizing.
• I miss my husband.
  

Tomorrow I will be more positive, and perhaps, I will even post about the wonderful things in my life. In the meantime, I'm going to write for the next several hours.

*Amended to say: Usually writing these things out makes me feel better, and so today I wrote hoping that I would experience a catharsis and would feel better. It didn't work.

Conference Update

The conference went really, really well. I got a lot of great feedback about my paper and, thus, the concept that my entire dissertation is organized around. I feel really great about this as this was the first time I've discussed my work with people in my field who are not at my home institution. C and Wild Man did fine with out me, as I knew they would. In fact, I found it really insulting that so many people at the conference said to me "You left your son home alone with your husband; how is that going to work out?" I found this particularly insulting because we are supposedly enlightened academics. Granted this is a conference that is very welcoming of families, and I saw lots of men and women with their children. But I still don't like the assumption that fathers are incapable of caring for their own children for three days on their own. It was also really great to see my good friend, whom I haven't seen in over 7 months. We actually avoided lots of panels in favor of just chatting with each other, although we did go to a really interesting panel on Mommy Lit that I will likely blog about in detail in a few days.

I have lots of other things to say about what is going on in my life right now, but I'm not at the point where I can write about these things without getting more stressed out or emotional. So that's my update on my life: stressed out and emotional. How fun. . .

Memoir, Abbreviated

Flossie at Stepping on Acorns tagged me for the Six-Word Memoir meme. I've decided my life is too multi-faceted only to write one--ok, really, I couldn't decide which I liked better.

Here are the instructions: 1. Write your own six-word memoir 2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like 3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere 4. Tag five more blogs with links 5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

#1: I haven't finished my dissertation; so?

#2: Academic motherhood: yes, it is possible.

I now tag Academama, Megsg-h and Supadiscomama at The Rhetorical Situation, Jennie at My Handful, and Anastasia.

I don't want to go

On Friday I leave to go to a conference, and on one level, I'm really excited about this conference. I am presenting a chapter from my dissertation, and I'm looking forward to possible feedback. This is a panel that I proposed and organized, so I'm really looking forward to talking to these people. I also get to see a very dear friend of mine, whom I haven't seen since last July.

That said, I don't want to go. I really just want to stay home with my family. C has 2 interviews left, but this is his week off, so to speak. He will actually be home for 12 days. If I weren't going away this coming weekend, we could have a "normal" week for the first time in 5 weeks. It would be so nice just to stay home with my boys and be together as a family. Of course, getting to sleep in and order room service sounds like fun too . . .

Mean Mommy

I occasionally become a different sort of mother, the mother whom C has named "Mean Mommy." (And in our house this is a direct reference to a Sex and the City episode in which Miranda says "All of a sudden I become "Mean Mommy," and nobody likes "Mean Mommy.") "Mean Mommy" makes rare appearances in our household primarily because I don't like to be mean. Last night, however, I was more than willing to be mean. As has become his habit lately, Wild Man woke up at 12:15; his cries woke me up out of a dead sleep. I was in the exact same position I had been when I went to bed about 3 hours earlier (yes, I went to bed a 9:15, and no, this is not altogether unusual for me). Given that Wild Man had gone to bed about 45 minutes later than usual and that he had kept me up the night before, I was not in the mood to be soothing and comforting. I was in the mood to sleep. After it became apparent that he was not going to go back to sleep on his own, I went into his room, helped him find his puppy, and rearranged his blanket for him. He settled right down and in about 3 minutes was asleep. The second I turned to walk out of his room he stirred and sat up; rubbing his eyes, he said "Go play?" All of a sudden I realized that my wily toddler was trying to stay awake. On a different night I may have felt some sense of guilt over the chaos that has ruled our lives as of late and that has clearly had an effect on Wild Man. I may have interpreted this as an attempt to spend more time with me, given we hadn't seen each other much that day because of C's absence and my schedule. I may have been patient and comforting. This realization, however, irritated me to my very core, and I became "Mean Mommy." In my sternest voice I said, "It is not play time; it is sleep time. You go night night now." I then walked out of his room. He, of course, began crying. And you know what, this time I did not care. I was so tired that I just lied down in my own bed and dozed for the next 15 minutes. Yes, that's right I actually let my kid cry for 15 minutes straight, and again I did not care. After 15 minutes I went back into his room, and you know what? He wasn't standing up in his crib like he usually is; he was actually lying down, holding his puppy and his blanket. As soon as he saw me he indicated that he wanted me to hold him so he could rub my hair, something that always comforts him. I again said, in my "Mean Mommy" voice, "It is sleep time; you go night night right now." And for a change, he did just that. Within 5 minutes he was sound asleep in snoring. Within 10 minutes I was asleep myself. I'm beginning to think that "Mean Mommy" may be making more appearances if Wild Man continue to wake up in the middle of the night.

Do we want our kids to be independent?

This morning, while Wild Man and I were eating breakfast, I watched Ann Curry of The Today Show interview a mom who let her 9-year-old son ride the New York subway home alone. The mother, who is a columnist for the New York Sun, wrote about her son's desire to ride the subway home alone and her eventual acquiescence to his constant nagging. They talked about the best way for him to get home from mid-town Manhattan, she gave him a subway fare card, a subway and a bus map, and $20 just in case something happened as well as a bunch of quarters in case he needed to call her b/c the kid doesn't have a cell phone. The mother, Lenore Skenazy, has received lots of emails from people nostalgic about the first time they rode the subway alone in New York, and she's received even more emails from people accusing her of child abuse.

In the interview, Skenazy made the very valid (I think) argument that we live in a culture of fear. New York, as recent studies show, is not the city is was 20 years ago. It is one of the safest cities in America, and her son, Izzy, made it home without incident. He didn't get lost, he didn't get harassed, he didn't get abducted. What he did get was a sense of accomplishment and a greater sense of independence, things that Skenazy sees as positive--and I have to say that I agree. I don't really see why so many people are outraged by Skenazy's decision to let her son ride the subway home alone. In fact the thing that surprised me the most is that Izzy does not have a cell phone--which shows me that Skenazy is not the typical parent living in 2008. She is clearly more concerned with raising her son to be self-sufficient and independent minded than she is with making sure he has the latest and greatest technology, even if that technology can be seen as a tool to keep him safe. It seems to me that she is being criticized for raising her kid to be independent, and I'd like to know when did that become a bad thing? When did it stop being a goal for parents to raise their children to know how to take care of themselves?

I am the mother to a very independent minded toddler. Wild Man will throw a temper tantrum if either C or I try to help him do something that he is determined to do by himself. My kid has already figured out how to climb up on our kitchen chairs to get to the fruit bowl at the middle of the table when he wants a banana; he'd rather do this than ask one of us to get it for him. Because he is only 17-months-old, his independence has raised some safety issues. I'd rather he not try to climb onto the kitchen table via a chair because I don't want him to crack his head open on our tile floor, but I am happy he is so independent. In the age of helicopter parenting, it seems that we want our children to be wholly dependent on us because it makes us feel like good parents. Will it make such parents feel like good parents when their 22-year-old children move back home after graduating from college because they still aren't ready to leave the nest? I thought it was our jobs as parents to prepare our children for adulthood, which means we have to help them learn to be independent. It seems to me that is all Skenazy did. If it is abusive to want your child to be independent, then C and I are in a whole lot of trouble.

I'm tired, plain and simple

I've been neglecting lots of things lately, my blog included, and the reason is in the title of this post: I'm tired, plain and simple. I'm not just the "I'm a dissertating-mom-of-a-toddler-tired" either. I'm tired physically, emotionally, and intellectually. It seems that the reason for my tiredness can be traced to one reason, the same reason incidentally that is currently the cause of every single source of stress in my life right now: C's job search.

In all honesty, I may as well have gone on the market myself as much time and energy as I've invested in this damn search. I remember thinking this past fall when C was sending out applications how much easier that whole process was when he did it in 2006. He had all the materials drafted this time; he just needed to revise them to address specific job ads. Thus, our fall was relatively stress free. We had lots of family time, and I even managed to find time to work on my dissertation on most Sunday afternoons. The spring, however, has been a different issue. C has been absorbed with conference interviews and on-campus interviews, which, aside from taking him to all end of the country, take an inordinate amount of time to prep for. He has been consumed by all of this stuff to the extent that it is impossible for us to have a conversation that somehow doesn't include a discussion of an upcoming interview. On top of that, we also enjoy stressing ourselves out further and having the conversation that starts "What happens if after all of this C doesn't get an offer?" When he is home, C is trying to keep up with his classes because he is, in fact, still teaching 4 classes this semester and prepping for future interviews. Every school has asked him to do something different, so his prep for every interview is different. Needless to say it has been hard to get a lot of work done, but I am trying my best to get through another chapter.

The thing that is stressing us both out the most is Wild Man's reaction to everything. C and I have been much snippier with each other than usual--we're both tired, we're both frustrated, we're both missing each other. We've had several pointless conversations which go something like "I'm tired, M." "Well, C, I'm tired too." "No, I'm tired." "No, I'm tired." In other words we have pissing contests on a semi-regular basis. Wild Man has picked up on the tension in the house, and he has also started having trouble sleeping again. This one isn't a surprise. My kid is not a good sleeper, but in the past few months we've had major break throughs. Despite the fact that he consistently wakes up between 6 & 6:30, he generally sleeps through the night. If he does wake up, he does so because he has misplaced his puppy, his favorite stuffed animal that he has taken to sleeping with. Once one of us gives him puppy, he goes right back to sleep. For the past 3 weeks, however, he has had what I can only describe as insomnia. At least twice a week, he wakes up around 11 and is awake for several hours, sometimes 1 but more often 2 or 3. Last night he was up from 11 until 1 and then from 3 until 4. He isn't fussy either; in fact, he only cries when he is alone. As long as one of us is in his room with him he is content to lie in his crib and hold our hands. Sleeping on the floor next to Wild Man's crib isn't the ideal place to get a restful night's sleep, however. We're both hoping that he will begin sleeping through the night again as soon as we able to get back to our regular schedule. Unfortunately there are three more weeks of travel ahead of us: 1 trip for me and 2 for C. It looks like I will continue to be tired for a while.

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.

• 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.
  

Waiting

C is home from Canada, and this is, he has openly declared, the job he wants. A great school, a great community, a great salary, a great everything. Now we just have to wait for the department to interview two other people and hope that they make C an offer. In the mean time he has two other on campus interviews with schools we're only lukewarm about. That makes a total of 5 on campus interviews so far. Really we're just hoping he gets one offer. Did I mention that by the time this process is over he will have been out of town 5 weeks out of 6? Oh, and the week he's home I'm out of town.

I'm would still be an American

So C is interviewing at a school in Canada. In fact, he is there right now, and in all honesty, this is the job we're the most interested in for a variety of reasons. But I've gotten a number of questions from various people about what it would mean for us to move to Canada. For us, it would mean a job, a cool community, and a place to live. I feel like people think a potential move to Canada correlates to some sort of political statement on our part. In fact, one good friend (who was half-joking) said "What are you just tired of being American?" Several people have point-blank asked if we would give up our citizenship, to which I have not so tactfully responded "What in the heck are you talking about?" I don't understand these sorts of questions. Yes, I am vocally unhappy with the current political climate of this country, but I have never made any statements suggesting I would renounce my citizenship--although I have repeatedly said I would move out of the U.S. if Roe v. Wade were ever overturned. I get that most of the questions are polite small-talk asked by people curious about our potential life-choices, but some people have blatantly said "Why would you want to leave America?" I mean it isn't as if we're contemplating a move to Pakistan. It is Canada, a country that isn't so different from our own (except it is generally more liberal). It isn't as though we're thinking of packing Wild Man up and moving to the Wilds of Borneo.

Congrats to Kate and Noodle!

My dear blog-o-sphere friend Kate, of a k8 a cat a mission, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl yesterday, who has been affectionately dubbed Noodle. Congratulations Kate, TD, and Noodle! C, Wild Man, and I are so, so happy for you all. I am especially glad you had the medication free birth you so desired--and worked hard for!

Home

Well C made it home around 2:00 am on Wednesday morning. He managed to make it safely into the nearest big airport, although not to our smallish College Town. He did manage to catch the last shuttle between Big City Airport and our College Town, which meant he got home sooner rather than later. Wild Man was happy to see him, but he has expressed some displeasure with C. Several times yesterday while they were playing Wild Man randomly took his toys away from C and told him "No, no!" He also would not allow C to hug me or kiss me; any time he saw C trying to do either, he ran over to us and smacked C or pushed us apart. Wild Man seems to be punishing C for his frequent absences. It will be interesting to see how his behavior changes in the next weeks, as C has three more interviews in the upcoming weeks.

For now, we're happy to have our family altogether for a while.

Stuck in Pacific Northwest

At some point in the past year, C must have supremely pissed off the Travel Gods. Every time he has traveled in the past year he has been delayed. The last trip to the Midwest was relatively uneventful, although his flight to our Home State was delayed by 2 hours, which meant that he didn't get home until well after Wild Man was asleep. So far today, his flight into Home State has been canceled, he has been rebooked on a different airline, and his new flight has been delayed. His flight into Home State is so backed up that he will miss the last flight into our small college town, which means he won't get home until sometime tomorrow morning (unless he decides to spend the money to rent a car, which would put him home around 2:00 this morning). That means that he has to cancel another day of classes (thus far, he has had to cancel about three weeks worth of classes because of on-campus interviews, something he hasn't felt much guilt about given the way his current institution has treated him as of late). Even though he wouldn't have gotten home until well after Wild Man was asleep this evening, he would have been home tonight. He could have seen Wild Man tomorrow morning, albeit briefly, as he would have had to go teach. C had already planned to pick Wild Man up early and spend some Daddy-son time together. C and I could have had some time together this evening to discuss his interview and the upcoming trip--or my work, which we haven't had much time to discuss recently.

Instead it will be just Wild Man and me for another evening.

Chili and Blueberries

Wild Man and I had chili for dinner, and he had frozen blueberries for dessert. He wants all of our friends to know that chili and blueberries make a very nice shampoo.

Without Daddy

C has already made one trip for an on-campus visit, and he is currently on his second trip. Next week makes trip number three, and he has a fourth one in mid-April (although we're not as excited about this school so if he gets an offer we like before that trip he may not go on that interview). Life without C is always a bit hard for me. Even after almost 8 years of marriage, I still get upset when he leaves even for short trips like these. I blame it on the fact that we had a long distance relationship for 2 1/2 years while we were dating. He lived in the Southwest while I lived in New England; we were both working on our MAs, and although we talked every day, we would only see each other every few months. There were many tearful good-byes at airports for us before we were married. I remember those moments when he has to go out of town even now.

I, of course, no longer have the luxury of indulging myself in a cry when I'm missing my out-of-town husband as I now have to keep Wild Man occupied and distracted. And he has certainly missed his father. Yesterday we dropped C off at the airport, and on the way there, Wild Man fell asleep in the car. He slept through me carrying him into the house, so when he woke up, he realized Daddy was not around. He gave the house a thorough search for him, but soon realized that Daddy was not around. We ended up going to a friend's house so I could keep him distracted from C's absence. It seems we're both having a hard time without C around. I anticipate that this afternoon, once I pick Wild Man up from school, Wild Man will search the house for Daddy again, and my explanation that "Daddy had to go to work" will not be any more comforting than it was yesterday.