Sunday, March 11, 2007

Happy Birthday Sweetheart

Things have been so crazy at our place since the baby was born, we have not celebrated birthdays properly. It’s my wife’s birthday, and I wanted everyone to know how much I love her.


At the end of the movie Babel, the director dedicates the movie to his children, calling them two bright lights in the darkest night. That line made me cry. Jen and my son are my two bright lights.

What I love about Jen is:


  • She is the most emotionally generous person I ever met
  • She loves to dance
  • She is great with kids
  • She has long beautiful hair
  • Her incredible intelligence is coupled with an astonishing lack of ambition
  • Her socks never match
  • She spends her entire day taking care of seriously ill kids. She has fallen in love with many of these kids, but still has had to watch them die. Amazingly, this has never dampened her enthusiasm for life
  • She is a great mother

I hope you have a wonderful birthday.

Love,
Your wife

Friday, March 09, 2007

Friday!

We made it through one week! My lil’ guy seems to still know who I am. And the best part is that we get to hang out all day tomorrow. I am not doing an ounce of housework. I am just going to play with my baby.

Here are a few things that have happened to me in the last week that haven’t happened in a long time:


  • A guy tried to pick me up! He asked me if I was married. I said yes. He asked where my husband was and then he was confused when I said I didn’t have a husband.

  • A lady tried to get me to come to her church. One of the many nice things about being a SAHM is that you cut down dramatically on those encounters.

  • Honest to god – I almost sat in shit this morning. Someone had defecated on the bus.


For this I am separated from my flesh and blood.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Adjustment Disorder

When I was first sober, I was in therapy. My therapist diagnosed me with Adjustment Disorder. I felt like that sounded kinda of mild. Things inside my head were very dramatic and earth shattering. Adjustment disorder sounded like I needed to floss more regularly or something.

I am beginning to see the wisdom of that diagnoses. I really do have a hard time with transitions. My lil’ guy is having an easier time of it. He seems to be enjoying day care. He is really easy going and loves being around people. At first I thought, maybe he gets that from his sperm donor. I am not like that at all. But something occurred to me the other day. Maybe if I hadn’t been brought up in an actively alcoholic home, maybe I would be more easy going as well. Maybe my constant anxiety is not an ingrained trait. If my father had gotten some help, I might have had an easier time growing up.

Monday, March 05, 2007

The Scoop

Mostly, I was very bored. My computer got confiscated in China, or some such. My manager had scheduled training for me, but he kept getting called away to conference calls. He left me with a software manual – but no computer! I sat and read the manual. I was sad and lonely without my little boy.

Almost everyone in the office is from MIT. I understand maybe every third word. They laugh uproariously at each other jokes. I scratched my head.

Lil’ guy did great in daycare. Every time I called I could hear him having fun in the background. He slept 1 ½ hours for his first nap, but refused a second. I was really glad to see him when I got home.

I made it through the day. I can’t believe I have to do it all again tomorrow.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

The Night Before

I am having a hard time with this. I just can't believe that tomorrow he is going to spend his whole day with someone who is not me.

All Set for Tomorrow



Here are the things I have laid out for my first day back at work


  • Pack and play for lil' guy to take his naps in
  • Supply of diapers
  • Bag of "transitional objects" to make his transition to day care easier. They include a few books, his Curious George monkey and a truck
  • Set of clothes for lil' guy
  • My shoes
  • Immunization Records and other paperwork
  • My purse with reading material (The New Yorker magazine)
  • Picture of me and my baby for me to look at during work hours


*sniff*

There are a few things I can't put out yet, but I need to remember - my lunch, his bottle of soy milk, his shoes and my work outfit.

If I have the energy tomorrow, I will log on and let everyone know how it all went.

Lentil and Vegetable Puree

This recipe is for Kim at Maddbabies. It is from the book, The Healthy Baby Meal Planner. She is looking for vegetarian recipes for her babies. This one is super easy and really nutritious. We are not vegetarians over here, but we try to get a lot of vegetables into lil’ guy’s diet.

Lentil and Vegetable Puree

2 Tablespoons butter
1 cup, sliced, washed leek
1 ½ cup chopped carrots
¼ cup split red lentils
1 ½ cup vegetable broth or water
1 cup cauliflower florets
½ apple, peeled, cored and chopped

Melt the butter and sauté the leek for about 5 minutes. Add the carrots and continue to cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the lentils and broth, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the cauliflower and apple and cook for another 15 minutes or until the lentils and vegetables are tender. Puree to the desired consistency.

Makes 8 portions (theoretically)

Speaking of vegetables, I am snacking on raw carrots right now, which is really unlike me. Since I am going back to work and will be unhappy separated from my baby, I decided I might as well go back on Weight Watchers. Now, my misery is complete.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Things I can blog about, but not say out loud

I am trying to keep my sadness over going back to work from turning into an out and out depression. I am having a hard time. I really want to enjoy my last few days as a SAHM, but honestly, I am fighting some really ugly feelings.

For reasons I don’t understand, going back to work is connected to my feelings about my family’s treatment of me and my son. As I mentioned, most of my immediate family doesn’t even acknowledge his existence. Besides a voice mail left when he was first born, my brother has never called or asked about him. My sister called once, and I haven’t heard from her since.

I have probably thought about my brothers and sisters every day since lil’ guy was born. I always knew that I didn’t come from a very loving family, but it wasn’t until my son was born that I realized how selfish they were.

What does this have to do with going back to work? I don’t know. Other than the fact that what I really want is to stay home but still have enough money to pay the bills, and that just isn’t the reality right now. What I really want is a supportive family, and that isn’t a reality either.

Compounding everything is the fact that I am running a fever and have a stuffy nose. Last night, I really wanted my wife to come home and take care of me. But there was a nurse at the hospital who had made some sort of mistake. She was feeling bad so my wife took her out for ice cream. She didn’t get home until late. I was really feeling sorry for myself by then.

I am just feeling pissy all over.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

I am switching teams


No. I am not going to start dating men. I am switching from SAHM to WM. That’s the feisty stay at home mom team to the beleaguered working mom team. They offered me the job. There were some tense salary negotiations for a couple of days. As much as I needed the money, I didn’t think their original offer was fair. I politely told them to bump it up or it was no deal. They did and I start on Monday.

I am sure me and lil’ guy will adjust. My wife seems relieved, and considering our financial situation, I do think it’s the right thing to do. After a year of my not working, we are seriously in debt. It’s a little alarming.

Nevertheless, I am feeling sad about being away from him. We have grown so close over this year. I don’t regret staying at home with him at all. I did not find it boring or meaningless or even lonely. It actually brought me a great deal of joy. The only downside was the constant stress of making the mortgage.

If anyone has any thoughts about staying connected to your child when you go back to work, I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment or email me at mary at thecybersecretary dot com.

Monday, February 26, 2007

February in Boston

Saturday, February 24, 2007

I did not learn everything I need to know in kindergarten

Here in the Northeast we have indoor playgrounds. Pretty nifty in sub zero weather. My son loves the playground. He stands in the middle and makes a joyful screech as all of the bigger kids dash around him.

As I have mentioned before, my son loves wheels. I watched as he pushed a plastic cop car around the brightly padded tarp. I was chatting with the other dyke mommies when I realized an evil little girl had stolen his car, jumped in it and was trying to run him over.

That evening, I relayed this story to my wife. She works with a lot of kids, and is pretty good with them.

“Did you talk to the little girl, and explain to her your son was playing with the car? You could have told her that she needs to let him play with it but she could have it in five minutes,” she asked.

“No. I grabbed lil’ guy from underneath the wheel and gave her a dirty look. Next time I saw her, I muttered, ‘I’m watching you’.”

“I don’t know that kids get that kind of subtlety.”

“Well. Where was her mother, anyway?”

I guess I have a lot to learn about the playground.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Presenting….a little boy


It still surprises me to see lil’ guy walking around a corner. When did he learn to walk? He does an adorable little disco dance with his arms to keep balance. I swear, I can almost picture him 6'0 tall and full grown.

Chivalry is not dead

No news yet on the job front. They contacted all of my references but want me to come in for a second interview. That seems a little backwards, don’t you think? I don’t know why I am so nervous, I don’t even know if I want this job.

I wanted to relay a quick story about something that happened to me yesterday. When I came out of my interview, I went to my car and tried to get it started. It was stuck in the snow. But not in any usual kind of a way. It was stuck like Rush Limbaugh in a size 2 tutu stuck.

A gentleman saw me trying to get me car started, and he came over and started to push the car. A second gentleman saw what was going on, and he came over and helped too. These two guys shoveled the snow and pushed my car for over ½ hour. It finally broke free of the ice.

I just wanted to mention this because we hear so often how civility has completely broken down in society. But these guys worked their butts off to help me out for no reason at all. Their only reward was good karma and a hug from me. I thought it was worth mentioning.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

By the time I came home, there was a message asking for references.

Shit.

Up all night, mind racing

I have a job interview this afternoon. I will post more cute pictures of the kid when I get back from it this evening.

The job interview is a last minute thing. I sent the company my resume yesterday, and they called me right away, even though it was a holiday. The job seems kind of intense. The company sells software that mines data for the CIA – yikes! What really bothers me is that it looks like a pretty consuming position. I was up all night thinking about it. I am afraid it’s going to totally take me away from lil’ guy.

Also, much to my surprised, I am feeling a little guilty interviewing for a permanent position when I might be going to school in a few months. I don’t usually feel guilty about my relationship to corporations, but this time, I am feeling a twinge of guilt.

I have been sending out applications for secretarial positions, but I just haven’t gotten any responses. So I sent out a couple of resumes in my old field, hence this interview.

I just have a funny premonition that they are going to offer me the job, and considering the financial situation we are in, I don’t know if I could turn it down.

But Googie, I hear you collectively scream, why don’t you just wait until you are offered the position before you worry about all of this. Well, that is just not how my mind works.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

My goodness, a rant

You know, Googie likes to think of herself as a non-judgmental sort. I don’t troll the internet looking for fights. I try to keep an open mind and live and let live. But check out this web site.



Ok, what the fuck is wrong with these people’s brains? Do you want your civil liberties threatened?

Do people have any understanding of how dangerous governments can be? Googie is sensitive to the fact that people are afraid after 9/11. She has even been persuaded for the need for a strong defense. Criminals and terrorist are a threat in any society. However, the most egregious criminal agents throughout history have been governments with unlimited power. Don’t believe me? Put down your bible for a moment and read the history of the 20th century. Terrorists are not capable of the slaughter that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union inflicted on its own people. Government power must be limited for a country to be free.

So what keeps us safe? Here’s some hints:
Its not preemptive wars against sovereign nations
Its not warrantless wire taps
Its not prisoners in secret prisons
Its not nuclear weapons
Its not tanks, soldiers or guns

What keeps us free? It’s the Bill of Rights and our collective respect for it. But the Bill of Rights is really just a piece of paper unless its principles are aggressively fought for in courts of law. Thus, the need for the American Civil Liberties Union.

A couple of asides: Don’t you think Googie is going to make a rockin’ lawyer? I can’t wait for law school.

Ironically, though I now worship at the church of liberalism, many of my ideas about government come from the philosophies of Ayn Rand and the political writings of Barry Goldwater. Like I have mentioned, I was raised in a Red State in a Republican family. By the time I was 18, I had read the entire Objectivist canon.
What really gets my goat is that if these people simply read their own literature, they would realize this administration’s disregard for civil liberties is a very bad thing. But my guess is that the people who run this web site and its readers are not conservatives at all, but Christian extremists. I believe what irks them about the ACLU is that the organization has halted their wholesale attempt to take over American public life.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Cat Fights


I promised myself that I wouldn’t blog anymore until a project I am working on for a client is done. Is the project done? No. I attribute my incredible self discipline to my Catholic upbringing, because you know that abstinence pledge worked out so well.

I am on a yahoo group for moms in my area. All sorts of moms are on it, straight moms, gay moms and even some men. It is a really active email list. Every thought that crosses the minds of these people gets emailed out. It’s everything from my daughter won’t stop eating toilet paper to my son is projectile vomiting, what should I do? The list is so active that I have surrendered an email address to it. The emails from the group just took over.

Every few weeks, without fail, a cat fight breaks out between the Stay at Home Moms and the Moms that Work. Today someone emailed an article about a local newscaster who gave up her job to be a SAHM and KABOOM, the fur started flying.

First of all, this strikes me as a rich girls fight. For most people, this isn’t even a discussion. I think for most people, the question is how are we going to pay the mortgage and feed a kid, not would I be more fulfilled at home or at work?

Second, parenting is the strangest thing. There is so much potential for misunderstanding and hurt feelings. I have never experienced another situation where ones choices can automatically offend other people, just because they made different choices. Co-sleeping can seem to be a negation of Ferber. Those who stay at home offend those who go back to work. Breastfeeding can seem like an insult to those who bottle fed.

Personally, I would like to see us support each other more. I know that the choices I made were grounded in the crucible of my reality. I breastfed until lil’ guy and I developed a painful case of thrush, and then we stopped. I stayed at home, but had to cash out my retirement fund in order to do it. Now I will be going back to work (ha ha). Accept in rare cases of abuse or neglect, I am sure other mothers make the best choices under the particular circumstances they find themselves in.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Musing on Housewife's Comments

I found myself thinking a lot about housewife’s comments, so I thought I would put them in their own post Andrew Sullivan style.






Housewife wrote:

1. I had a pink dollar bill the other day, can someone please explain this to me? I hate not being in on the joke.

2. My father was adopted, he was born in Nazi Germany and his mother died either in the camps or during childbirth... too many stories and none of them matter. The point is that he flew all over the world to find his father and please him. He was well into his 50's before he realized that his father was the man who tucked him in at night.

I think with an honest portrayal of who everyone is genetically that reminds your little guy that parenting is an active action (my father never had that) much angst would be saved.

I'm sure there is wondering aloud and in quiet but perhaps this can be done without pain?


First, I think the most likely explanation for the dollar bill is that it got put in the wash with some red clothes. If there a mass pink bill joke, I’m not in on it.

Second, the story about your father is amazing. I completely agree that parenting is about the actions you take, not who you are biologically. To be honest, I come about this from an intense background. I come from a large biologically family, but we don’t function as a family at all. My father wasn’t a father to me. I really see my first AA sponsor as the woman who mothered me and helped me become the woman that I am. I have five brothers and sisters, but only have contact with my youngest sister. My brothers and sisters, with the exception of the youngest, have shown no interest in my son. And I mean no interest. None. Zip. Two of them have never met him even though he is over a year. They have expressed no interest in meeting him. In fact, have not really acknowledged that he exists. I am not sure that I can ever forgive them. Meanwhile, I have friends who would jump out of bed and come over in the middle of the night if I needed them too. One of his godmothers has a picture of Googie at work. They celebrate his birthday and know when he hit his major developmental milestones. They are all ready to take him to Red Sox games. Personally, I think biology is over rated.

Like I said, I have talked to quite a few kids of gay parents. Some of them seem really interested in their sperm donors, but others not so much. Mostly what I hear expressed is curiosity, not angst. My friend’s daughter, from the New York Times piece, said she wanted to see what he looked like, and then just take it from there. She seems pretty mature for her age. I don’t hear any big expectations from her about what meeting her sperm donor is going to mean for her life.

I did read a piece in the Washington post from a young girl I don’t know. Her mother is a straight woman who used an anonymous sperm donor. You can find it here. She does talk about depression and anxiety about not knowing her biological father. So what I was trying to say is that if my son should experience these feelings, I hope I have dealt with my shit enough to be there for him and help him deal. But maybe he won’t have any feelings about it at all. I have seen that too. As for me, I would not be comfortable if the sperm donor came forward, however, my personal comfort is no longer the most important thing to me. That stopped when lil’ guy came bouncing out of me and into the world.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Beer Money

A friend of mine told me tonight that her daughter’s anonymous sperm donor has stepped forward and broken his anonymity. Her daughter flew out to LA to meet him. It was a big deal. It was in the New York Times. She was having feelings about it because she is the non-bio mom. She was bummed that there was one more biological connection that she wasn’t a part of.

I was a little freaked out by the story. Just last night, I watched the movie Broken Flowers where the main character goes out in search of his son. I was having nightmares about 3672 showing up at our house one day with pink flowers in hand asking to see lil’ guy.

I asked my friend how she was doing, and she said she realized it was ok to have feelings. She knew that her daughter loved her, and she could just step out of the way and let things happen. Then she said, “Its just part of the deal that you sign on for when you do this.” Her hands waived in the air when she said it. I knew exactly what “this” was. This is stepping away from the traditional family unit. This is traveling down a different, less worn path. This is deciding that fundamentalist be damned, you were going to have a family.

I have noticed that kids of lesbians experience a range of emotions about their sperm donors. Some seem really interested in who he is, others appear to care less. I have tried to mentally prepare myself for the questions our son will have. More importantly, I am trying to prepare myself for his feelings so that I can help him when the time comes. I believe that being open to his feelings are also part of the deal, another thing that I signed on for when I signed up for “this”.

I have to say though, that mostly, I am grateful. I am sure there are a lot of reasons why young men donate their sperm. My younger sister said at her university, the frat boys donate their sperm so that they will have beer money. Thank God for frat boys who need beer money! What would the lesbians do without them? I’d buy you a beer if I knew you. Our son is the best thing to ever happen to us.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Quick update

So I woke up this morning to things being shut off. First it was the cable, and then the phone and then the internet. First thought was not how am I going to continue to send out resumes, but how will I blog? Luckily, one of my slacker accounts had finally paid me, and much to my surprise, the check cleared so I had money to get everything turned back on.

Yesterday’s interview went pretty well, but it was short. Not sure what to make of it. I think that means either the interviewer took one look at me and thought, “You are so perfect for this job, we don’t need to go on.” Or it means she took one look at me and thought, “I would rather have a poke in the eye with a red hot poker than work with you.”


In little boy news, my son has been soooo sweet lately. I’ve been a little bit depressed, and he and the dog just give me hugs and kisses all day. I’ll be sitting on the couch staring out the window, and he will toddle over to me and puts his arms around my knees and pats my leg. I didn’t even know he knew how to hug. No matter what, remember this, it has all been worth it.