september mama

it's been a long time since posting! i'm always, always busy at work... but i like it here, so it's ok. i'm stealing time right now...

the kids are ridiculously grown-up. liam walks/runs/climbs everything, and he loves to dance. and play dress up. anything he can wear around his neck, his arm, or his head makes him literally prance around (it's so cute). i caught him a few weeks ago standing in front of their play kitchen with a shiny pink necklace on, holding a baby against his ear, stirring a pot on the "stove." he's going to make some woman verrrry happy one day, lol.

he's still not talking very well, but he is trying. he manages a few words clearly, but the rest is either garbled nonsense or "eh, EH." oh, and i gave him his first haircut last week... i've been torn because his pretty little curls were very girly, and i felt like he is too boyish for that. so i cut it into a sort of longish mo/faux-hawk with a tail at the end, because i just couldn't bear to cut off ALL the curls. so he looks a little bit like a redneck boy from the mid-eighties :). infant innocence has fully given way to mischievous BOY. alas, all with a few snips... i almost cried the whole next day over it.

rowan is little-miss-not-a-little-girl. i swear that kid is a grown up in a munchkin body 90% of the time. she's just so smart, and so with it, and she comes up with the craziest things. her imagination is a little bit out of control, in fact, but she got that honestly. she's counting objects these days, which is neat, and she can sound out many letters and recognize a couple of words. we went to her first movie a few weeks ago (beauty and the beast 3D), which was exciting for her. she didn't wear the glasses for most of it, but she stuck through the entire showing.

i have been making very good progress on my attempts at reducing the size of my ass (and thighs, and waist, and arms...). right around jan 1--by coincidence ONLY--i reformed my eating habits basically back to eating raw, without being too strict about that aspect of it. i'm counting calories extremely closely, however, and just this last week have started doing some silly online workout videos a few nights a week. sunday, i ran 2 miles. it feels great, and today i am ecstatic to say that i am comfortably wearing pants that were too tight 3 weeks ago. *happy sigh* i've lost several inches, overall, from various parts of my body. now i just need to work on toning and upping the metabolism. desk jobs are hard :P.

i managed to write a paper on the topic of unassisted birth for a forestry class i am taking... i thought that was a pretty big achievement, haha. something about behavior changes adopted in the past 5 years. it fit, so i used it.

i have to do work now, but i need to post some pics of the kids, especially liam's new haircut.

so i haven't even started my new job yet, and i'm already privy to some mini-dramas/conflict. and i thought i was escaping all that... ! really though, it just boils down to one very cranky woman in a position of not-that-much relevance to anyone else. so it shouldn't affect me often.

related to this, i HEART our amazing IT woman. yes, our IT guy is a woman. woot! she's sharp, witty, personable, and totally adept at her job. we are already friends :).

i haven't posted about animals lately because i haven't had much to say, but we've had some things going on that are worth mentioning. first, my mail-order chickies are growing fast! they're so cute and bouncy, and will shortly be outgrowing the cage i have them in. my three incubated hatchlings are slightly older and are also doing well. james brought me a rooster and hen yesterday who are about full-grown, and i have the two adolescent survivors out of the batch of sick chicks i bought back in march(?). i also have an incubator full of viable pre-chicks! i candled a few of them the other day and i saw kicking fetuses in every one i randomly picked up. so in a few days i will have some brand new hatchlings, totaling my chicken count to something like 40. holy crap.

the problem right now--since we caught the raccoon, fucker--is our ducks. they are BIG, and very, um, reproductively aggressive, which is going to be a serious problem. they attacked our new rooster yesterday, confused as to his sex, and i had to literally grab the ducks and throw them out of the coop to keep them from hurting him. and he was full-grown, much unlike the rest of my flock! i don't really know what to do about this except find a way to confine the ducks and/or get rid of them. i'm not really a fan anyway, but they are matt's project so i will leave it to him to deal with their shenanigans. all i know is if they hurt/maim/kill my chickens they are going in the oven. stat. at least one of the duck hens finally laid an egg the other day (which was promptly eaten by, i presume, crows).

matt is working with a tattoo artist to design a full sleeve for himself, which both makes me happy for him and slightly (so slightly) jealous. i've been toying with the idea of extending my own half-sleeve since i got it, and i know just how i would do it, but i am hesitating due to career issues. more than likely it would never be an issue, but then again, you never know... and i do NOT want to have to wear long-sleeves every day in florida heat. so we'll see. i need to find something spectacular to do for my bigthreeoh birthday, though, and that technically qualifies. :)

the munchkins are lovely, as always, and totally embracing their new caregiver and her kids. i come home and they are happy, rested, fed, and usually playing very intently. it's great. then i get to spend bath time with them and hang out for a little bit before they go to bed at their new, later, bedtime (about 630, lol). rowan has learned how to operate door knobs and greeted me at my bedside the other morning, declaring "i'm awake!" uggggh. so it's time to get those little childproof door knob cover things. i can't have her running around the house while we sleep, or worse, deciding to go outside on her own. liam has mastered the walker and is so funny as he runs through the house with his arms held out, propelled in a nearly-uncontrolled fashion by legs that are just starting to cooperate. he's going to be walking really soon.

oh, totally random product review: tom's of maine unscented deodorant (aluminum free) is awesome!! i usually use the lavender stuff that i bought a few years ago, but it doesn't really work over more than a few hours, but this stuff ROCKS. it says "24 hour" and it is. i don't have much of an issue with stink, thankfully, but what little there is has been quashed by this stuff. love.

i need to buy a bunch of cardigans and some prints for my office, but i have to wait for the monies :(.

note to self: subway fucking SUCKS! don't buy it. even if it is the only place to get food on campus during break week... you'd rather be hungry. stale bread+weak toppings+poorly structured sandwich=suck.

ugh, my eyes are bleeding from staring at the same annoying document all day. and all day yesterday. and i can look forward to doing another one on friday! i am rather looking forward to a day off tomorrow, even if it does mean doing chores.

at the risk of rambling on and boring even myself, let's talk more about new hair. this cut i created is lending itself most ideally to the kind of styles i have never done before--choppy, edgy, jagged, and brushed forward. it feels a little weird when i look in the mirror, because while i like it, i don't see it as "my" style (yet?). i need to work on the cut so i can pull off something a little more romantic and effortless, as despite the numerous visible tattoos on my body, i don't really consider myself "edgy." i think i am going to shorten the crown section (esp around the forehead/bangs) and let the rest grow a bit to more closely approximate the pic in the post below. i do love her hair. now that i think about it, her hair is actually a reallreallyreally subtle
mullet. HA! and so i revisit the days of my youth.*

"with short hair you begin to crave pearl necklaces, long earrings, and a variety of sunglasses. and you brush your teeth more often. short hair removes obvious femininity and replaces it with style...short hair makes you aware of subtraction as style. you can no longer wear puffed sleeves or ruffles [says who?!]; the neat is suddenly preferable to the fussy. you eye the tweezers instead of the blusher. what else can you take away? you can't hide behind short hair... you may look a little androgynous, a little unfinished, a little bare... but your face is no longer a flat screen surrounded by a curtain: the world sees you in three dimensions."
- joan juliet buck for american vogue, c.1988

i have to argue with the "unfinished" bit, and forgive slightly outdated sensibilities in general (she was writing in 1988!) but otherwise YES. the first thing i did when i cut off my hair was sit down and really edit/shape/polish my eyebrows... of all random things. and i am learning that earrings are an awesome, uber-feminine accessory for me. as are cardigans, which i can never have enough of... anyway.

the devil can take subway, but at least i got a dr. pepper out of it. mmm fountain soda!


*in first grade, i begged and begged my mom to let me have "spiked hair" and she did. so at 6 years old i had a spike-top mullet (which i styled carefully every day) with long hair everywhere else. there are photos. they are funny.

some good(?) things have come out of this new-job-preparation state i find myself in. i almost feel a sort of mild nesting impulse, if you can imagine that.

the first thing: terrariums. (yes, that is grammatically correct.) oh. my. word. they are addictive! i realized that because my office has no windows, and less because i work in forestry, i definitely need some plants in my space. but the no-windows thing sort of poses a problem, no? enter MOSS. velvety, otherworldly green, beautiful, beautiful moss. it happens to love shade. so i found a nice little DIY kit on etsy and ordered it for myself. i have a slight obsession with containers--boxes, jars, bottles, etc--so i happened to have a stash of suitable terrarium enclosures on hand... then i went outside into the woods and gathered up rocks, lichen/mushroom-covered branches, and forest trinkets, and last night i assembled it all together into the most amazing, wonderful, dreamy little ecosystems i have ever seen. i am in love. i just want to stare at the moss and shrink myself so i can live inside the jars and roll around on it. (incidentally, i am positive i was a dryad in a previous lifetime...) here's a few pics, but trust me when i tell you they do NOT do justice to these magnificent specimens.

and now i appreciate my soon-to-be-had freedom from this job, even if it means twice as many hours a week. i have been doing the kind of job a robot will DEFINITELY be doing in the next 15 years or so, all. freaking. day. i'm having the soul sucked out of me.

copy+paste, then format. 1003950876 times. almost the same information, in exactly the same template. and when i'm done, i get to do it all again for a different document! holy shit.

on top of the mindlessness factor, i'm also having to edit/crop faculty CVs, which, if you know anything about faculty, can be a really touchy task. this is for a big important review and here i am, ms. knows-nothing, hacking away at their decades' worth of high-level academic experience in an effort to make it fit into two pages at 12pt Times New Roman. wow, thanks! i love having that kind of responsibility without any guidance whatsoever.

best part of all, is I ALREADY DID THIS THREE WEEKS AGO--all of it!--but someone failed to tell me back then that "oh, well we have this new template so we should probably use it..." no, they forged ahead with outdated versions not thinking that we might need to re-do all previous work in yet another insane crunch deadline, instead of just doing it right the first fucking time.

oh and by the way, THANKS for going out of town and not even letting me know, when we have this huge deadline that you still haven't given me a date for. it makes resigning really simple when i don't even have to look you in the eye. *sarcasm*

((starting to think this is an effort to make myself feel better for leaving them... at least if i'm mad i can't feel guilty, right? but it is all true nonetheless))
arrrgh!

well... i wasn't planning on doing this until the kids were a bit older, but an opportunity arose that i just couldn't let pass, and now i find myself preparing to start a full-time job.

fuck.

i mean, it's a really amazing situation--better than i would have dared hope for--so i really have nothing to complain about. except the kids. i am so, so, so dreading leaving them for multiple full-days each week. to the point that i almost called the whole thing off; great salary, flexible hours, cake job, and all.

they are going to let me work 4 days @ 10hrs each so that i can be home 3 days/week(!!!), after an intial let's-get-going 8 to 5 run. because matt is also a state employee, our health insurance is going to be $15 a month instead of over $200. i'll get ample vacation leave. i'll be on salary (i.e., no time clock). i'll have a closed-door office that i can decorate as i please. and yes, i will have some mental and social stimulation while doing something i am really good at and people openly appreciate me for.

but (oh the huge BUT)... this is a major sacrifice and it is scaring the hell out of me. i just tentatively hired a stranger with two kids of her own to come to my house and care for the loves of my life. without me. ((they need me! don't they?)) i know millions of mothers struggle with this every single day, and my plight is not unique, but bollocks this hurts. how does a mother leave her newborn when maternity leave ends? i cannot imagine.

i have sought counseling from the only other working mom i know, and she assures me that the time i am with them will be all the more special once i start working, because there won't be all the time that i now spend trying to do chores around them, or whatever. and that is a good point. i spend a lot of our daily time doing maintenance work for them, managing liam's mischief, making food, and trying to clean/work/whatever around them. we don't have a whole lot of really 'quality' time, other than in brief moments here and there. so i can see what she means... but still. is it better to be there more but slightly distracted or less and fully attentive? i am going to miss them so fucking much.

it will be very good for rowan to (finally!) get to play with a little girl, and she got along marvelously with both kids and immediately took to their mother, which i take as a great sign. (we interviewed one other mom+kids and rowan was NOT into them. it was obvious.) liam too, of course--he was all smiles and her kids played with him as much as with rowan. so yes, it will be good for them, and at least they will get to be comfortable and secure in their own home... but rowan is going through a mommy-withdrawal stage where she clings to me on my return and then worries--i can see it in her face--about when i will leave again. i am afraid this might subtly scar her emotionally. really.

another but: this basically means that breastfeeding will not be increasing after all. there is no way i can get my supply up working 5 days/week. i'm not even going to try. we will continue to nurse in the morning (if he's awake) and evening as long as he wants to, but i don't expect to actually provide much in the way of nutrition... though at least i can provide comfort. i will be doubly sad when that relationship ends, because now i feel like it is mostly my fault... and i'm sorry to say i expect the end is just around the corner.

i am excited about the job, i am... i'm just in a terribly depressed funk that i pray to the gods passes quickly. i'd like to say it's just hormones but the fact is this is a totally justified emotion and i am not exaggerating. women are taught to force away their maternal feelings in favor of what society expects of them, no matter how unnatural... i'm not going to do that. it's a fucked up and horrible thing to have to leave (/abandon) your children and i plan to feel it until i don't anymore.

*sob*

edited to add:
in addition to all my stress/worry/sadness over the kids, i forgot to mention that i am feeling like a total asshole with regards to my boss, who just a few weeks ago asked me pleadingly whether i was planning to stick around for a while, because "we can't do this without you." so. guilt? yes. more guilt? oh yes.

i gave my notice today (via email, while the poor guy is traveling!) and i just feel ill over it. i know they will be ok but i hatehatehate causing a ruckus and making other peoples' lives more difficult. sigh.