Tension Makes a Tangle

Twenty-six days since my last post. I'm improving!

Recently, Honey shared with me a link to a program that would allow us to seal in today's college tuition prices for Shortcake's future use. In other words, we could pay X amount each month for a total of Y amount, which would be honored at up to 270 universities around the U.S. - including our alma mater - in 2028, when she starts college. We figure in 18 years, the program will expand to include more than just 270; but for now, we're pleased that it includes our alma mater, MIT, Stanford and plenty of other recognizable, "good" schools. At our present income, the monthly amount we'd need to deposit for the program is not really do-able. This is something that I want to look into further and might likely be the best idea for college savings for Shortcake. But I'll be honest, I worry that discussing how to save for her will lead to a conversation I'm not sure how to have. Carrying my economic weight.

The underlying topics of this conversation, as I see it applying to me: obligation and role-modeling.

Let's begin with the obvious, obligation. I have a child now. I am no longer the center of my own universe, nor is my husband the center of his own. (Well, when we decided to marry, we combined orbits around a collective of two, so we haven't been the centers of our universes for several years.) Now, the focus of our orbit is around this little girl and any of her future siblings, and it is a vital focus. So that means every decision we make, and action we take, needs to be done for the good of the family, and more specifically, the good of her. Wanna move to Ireland? Will that be good for the unit? Good for her? Maybe. Maybe not. So, it seems like the logical response should be: Molly should get a job outside the house. It is her obligation, if she wants her child to attend college. And don't be so selfish, Molly - your husband needs someone to lighten his load. Get over yourself! What makes you so special that you don't have to get a hair cut and get a real job?

And this is where I begin to falter. I'm not sure I'm ready to re-enter the full-time workforce, yet. I'm not sure I ever want to. Let's get the selfish reasons out of the way, first: I enjoy caring for our daughter. I love it. Even when it's at its most annoying,caring for our daughter is still more rewarding than when outside work is least annoying. I enjoy being able to go to the library or go grocery shopping during the day, or take the dog for a walk in the sunlight, or go on an audition. Though mothering doesn't let me get as much done as I'd like to do on any given day, I like the weekly flexibility it offers. An economic reason I'm reluctant to return: childcare is expensive. The last job I almost took - a contract job that would've lasted a few weeks - I turned down, because the cost of childcare would've been about 2/3 my paycheck. Yes, 1/3 is better than 0/3, but it's hard to argue that I should leave our child in the care of a virtual stranger to bring home 1/3 of a paycheck working on a project that I'm actually not enthusiastic about. I've been in the workforce for about a decade or so, and my attempts to climb beyond the bottom rung have met terribly limited success. So, I'm not entirely sure I qualify for many higher-paying jobs to offset the cost of childcare, anyway. Finally, a sentimental reason: I don't want to become my mother.

My mom has worked outside the house in some form or fashion since she was a teenager. In the 34 years I've been around and have seen her work, I've rarely seen her content with her work situation. She usually resents her jobs. She enjoys being employed. Mom is one of those people who wouldn't know how to fill the time if she didn't have a job. She'd be bored and confused. But she's always ended up resenting her job.

And this is where the role-modeling conflicts with my sense of obligation.

I was lucky enough to see my dad switch career paths and find his calling. Ministry is difficult (financially, emotionally, spiritually), but it's what he's best at and what he loves, passionately. Mom never really found that path of passion. She did what she had to do to pay the bills when they were newlyweds, up through my tween years: working for the state in a mind-numbing bureaucracy. She despised it. When she decided she wanted to teach, she was thrilled to pursue it. She learned, after a few years, that students don't give a shit about learning, administrators' support of teachers is fickle and parents are either disengaged or overly protective. She hates it - or, at least, she's rarely had anything good to say about it in the last 15 years. I'm certain some of my mom's resentment isn't so much at her job as it is at the fact that she's always had to be the one whose salary is most stable, and often larger. Try raising a family of four, plus a dog, on $12k a year, the take-home my dad had when I was a teenager, and you can see how Mom was obligated to stick out a job she didn't like.

My goal has always been to provide our children - but particularly any daughters - with a mother who is happy with her career. Whose job is, if not her passion, then at minimum, a source of pride and joy. It has always made me terribly sad that my mom has never been happy in her career choices. The last thing I want my daughter to see, when she sees me, is a woman who lives with personal or professional resentment.

Of course, I realize I have to correct an earlier assertion. My mom did once have a job she was passionate about. She was a feature writer at our town's daily newspaper. Knowing her as I do, these days, I think that was the best job for her personality. It fits her organizational style, her personal curiosity and her writing style. She gave it up about a year or two before I was born. I never knew why until this last year.

She gave it up because she and Dad wanted to have a child. Dad, newly ordained, was chaplaining here and there, and subbing in pulpits, as well as in the local school system as a teacher. His income wasn't steady or sufficient. Mom's was. However, in the mid-70s, if you wanted to keep your job, as a woman, you didn't get pregnant. The only employer who wouldn't fire you if you were pregnant back then, that she knew of - and that would pay a better salary than she made - was the State of Texas. She returned to work six weeks after I was born. Six. Weeks. That's the amount of time they gave her. For those of you who've had kids, you know your body is just then starting to heal, and the baby, who still needs to eat every 2 - 3 hours, is entering the 6-week fussy phase and needs Mommy. Luckily, Dad was unemployed at the time, so he provided the childcare for a few months. Within a year, he got a full-time chaplain job at a local hospital and they had an employee nursery.

And this takes me back to work. I could be wrong, but I suspect that having me at home is an emotionally beneficial arrangement for us as a family, right now. I have had a few auditions (a couple this week, actually) for paying gigs; I'm exploring a paying gig for Shortcake and I'm not without options in terms of working from home or working on occasion. What I need to do right now is decide how committed I am to not subsuming. This would mean more self-promotion on my part, something I am loathe to do. I truly hate tooting my own horn, particularly as a means to an end. It might also mean a little more flexibility on my family's part. Currently, I try not to be out more than 1 - 2 nights a week, for rehearsal and performance. But I could (and would like to) make myself more available for improv teaching opportunities, some of which would be at night. The pay would be a pittance, but it would be pay doing what I enjoy and I'd be getting better at it for future work.

I really do appreciate all Mom has done for us. I just mourn that she decided to sacrifice her personal, professional happiness in the process. For most of human history, women have been the ones who've had to subsume their dreams for the expectations of society, or their subsume their happiness for the good of the family. Though Mom had more options than her mother, and she pursued them, she still subsumed both her dreams and happiness, ultimately. I live in an era when I have more options than my mother had. My dreams are fluid, as is my happiness, but I don't want to subsume them. I want Shortcake to see a woman who is happy with her professional choices, whatever they look like. ... I'm just living in tension about this, right now.

Surfacing, Crowning, or what have you

I've been meaning to write for several weeks, now. And I've been meaning to catch up on your blogs for a couple of months, now.

Here's the update: despite three individual complications - only one of which was relatively benign and could be more reasonably called an annoyance more than a complication - I delivered a healthy baby girl 6 weeks before her due date. Due to the complications, I was scheduled to deliver her at 35 weeks, but life being what it is, after yet another "oh shit" incident, we had to have an emergency C-section 5 days before her scheduled one. Though I think the final incident that preceded her birth could've been ridden out, as had other similar incidents that month, my doctor and the amazing staff at the hospital decided 4 "prep the gurney" incidents in a month was enough and to not take any more chances. I'm glad they didn't.

Honey and I are now the amazed parents of a little strawberry-blonde wiggly worm I will henceforth call Shortcake (like Strawberry Shortcake, get it?) on this blog. If she wasn't swaddled 90% of the time, she'd like to sleep with one arm over her head, just like her father. And like her mother, her hair changes color in different lights ... and she has my forehead. Luckily, she heard enough of Babydog's barking in utero not to be affected by it on the outside. Likewise, because she spent the first two weeks of life in the NICU, surrounded by lights, alarms, radios, screaming babies and jocular nurses, she's pretty unbothered by any sudden sounds or lights or what have you. For the most part, she's a pretty easy baby.

I return briefly to the "amazed" adjective. Honey and I are most certainly proud parents, but I like to think we're also really amazed. Amazed that we've been entrusted with the care of another human being from birth to the threshold of adulthood, amazed at how much our perspectives on life and about ourselves have shifted virtually overnight, and amazed that we have her at all.

There are several reasons to be amazed that we have her at all, and almost all of them have to do with chance. I could go into the tiny turns of fate that led to her getting here - we're all the results of chance, really - but sometimes I look at her and thank God she was born when and where she was. You see, of the two not-benign complications I had, one would've been fatal for her, and possibly me, as early as 50 years ago. We both certainly would've died 100 or more years ago. But the wide availability of C-section and ultrasound have made that complication easily and usually survivable these days. The other not-benign complication is one that would've been fatal for her, possibly as recently as 10 years ago. That complication, to this day, is often diagnosed after delivery, as in: "oh, that's why the baby died." And it's rare. Rare enough that most of my nurses in the high risk pregnancy ward had to look it up when I or my doctor told them what I had. And they always returned slightly ashen-faced and treated me with more kid-like kid gloves than they were prepared to. (I finally looked up the mortality rates, after Shortcake was safely with us. Those statistics are entirely against the favor of the baby.) Thankfully, advances in ultrasound technology have made that complication easier to spot at all, but not every ultrasound lab has the technology available still. So I'm thrilled that my choice of OBGYN gave me the chance to go to the lab I went to; my previous OBGYN would've directed me to another lab, which is good, but not as equipped. Had that happened, I may have carried to term and lost my daughter in delivery or sooner. So, yup. I'm an amazed parent, not just proud.

For those interested, below is a photo of Shortcake's precious right ear. This ear is resting in the crook of my elbow right now. This ear hears me sing into it and will hear sweet nothings whispered into it in the future. How I hope to never be the source of any vitriol or anger to pour into that sweet little ear. If I could, I would protect that ear forever from such rage. But as I can't, I hope I can shepherd this child such that she can hear that and filter it; to listen for the opportunities to deliver comfort to the pain behind the rage or to stand up against the evil in the rage.



I'll try to post more than just once a month! And best yet, I'll try to catch up on all your blogs, soon. In the meantime, I've got a dirty diaper to change!

Glædelig Jul!

After a much needed 8.5 hours of sleep on Christmas Eve, I sat in my hospital bed enjoying the darkened silence of the room. I considered sleeping past 6:30, since this will be last opportunity to do so for many Christmases to come. At least another 10 or 15 years, by my conservative estimate. But I wasn’t sure I want to take advantage of that. Besides, stuck in a hospital room for weeks, I needed to have something to look forward to. Something to make me giddy. The last few weeks have been so weird - not living with my husband or dog, or even my cat!; taking everything one day at a time, grateful for each day that I'm still pregnant, particularly since I've had a few close calls, including one that canceled my baby shower (my last remaining hope for some activity or item resembling a "normal pregnancy”) and another last week that got me the closest to delivery I've been, yet. Nope. I chose to be giddy and rise early to celebrate. Even if it was just me in my bed for a few hours, before Honey came.

I listened to Christmas music on my laptop and thought of Christmases past. Until I was about 12, we'd spend Christmas Eve at my grandparents' house. All, or most, of my moms' siblings would come, so the house was throbbing with cousins. My family would go to our church's candlelight service, usually over by 6 or 6:30 and then join the festivities in progress at Grandma's. It was loud, fun and largely unstructured. We'd eat tamales, rice and beans and chow on deserts. The kitchen was a traffic circle. Around 8:30 or 9, we'd open gifts and things would wind down around 10:30 or 11, when the cousins would start to head to bed and we'd head back home. Sometimes, this ritual would be in Dallas, at one of my uncles' houses, but it was pretty much the same deal. Christmas morning was just for our immediate family, opening our own gifts and Mom would make quiche. Her annual Christmas quiche brunch. We were never a "Christmas dinner" kind of family. We were a Christmas brunch family.

I’m wondering what future Christmases will be like with the new little one. This time next year, our kid will be just shy of a year old, so we might be chasing his/her little waddling bottom out of the kitchen, while Honey bakes up dozens and dozens of delicious cookies and he and I make chocolate truffles together.

My sister-in-law lives nearby and we more often than not spend Christmas and/or Thanksgiving with her and her family.

Her kids are way older than ours: high school and entering junior high soon, so I’m not sure what kind of relationship this kid will have with them. We’ve never spent Christmas or Thanksgiving with Honey’s father, since we’ve been together, to my knowledge. We’ve done a few with his mom and a couple with my family. But nothing that really establishes tradition. I suppose we still have a few years to figure that out. I’d just really like our kid(s) to have fond memories of playing with cousins and singing carols and eating traditional foods that they have memories of watching us prepare and grow up to want to learn to make. You know: like I had! (Side note: I tasked my mother with getting my grandmother’s tamale recipe, so I can learn to make them for Christmases future. Honey has perfected her pico de gallo, so if I can just make a passable version of her tamales, maybe we can at least keep the Mexican Christmas dinner tradition going.)

This barely felt like a regular Christmas this year. Even though we got a foot of snow. (Almost none of which I could see from my hospital window, as it looks into a courtyard!) This Christmas, my every thought has been on the safety of the little creature growing inside me. This Christmas, my focus has been on staying pregnant for one more hour, one more day; knowing that each day, each week means a healthier baby. I have no emotional or mental room for anything else, frankly. Just keeping this kid safe and incubating. I have my own drama to worry about.

Normally, we’ve got the house decorated by early December, holiday music wafts throughout the house, the kitchen smells of sugar and butter as Honey is constantly baking. I’m writing our Christmas cards and mailing them out to loved ones. And we’re scrambling to get gifts for family (my least favorite part of Christmas – consumer “obligation”). This year, my hospital room has received most of the decorations (for which I am grateful), and the house, none, as Honey has taken to preparing the house for the arrival of our little winter babe. Even though I have a chunk of Christmas music on my laptop, I’ve not listened to it enough. Mostly because it’s awkward to fetch my laptop when lying from a 33 degree angle. We’d not been able to go any Christmas parties, holiday shows or movies of the season. We celebrated in our own way, though. And all things considered, this was one of the best Christmases I’ve had in a long time. Just because Honey is so fantastic and it reminds me what my priorities are. And the visits from friends I got on Christmas day just added a luster to the day that I won’t soon forget.

One thing we know for sure: next Christmas will be far different from this Christmas. We’ll be out in public again. The house will be decorated. The music will be playing and David Sedaris stories playing and the kitchen will smell of Honey’s magic. Christmas cards will go out (yes, probably with baby pictures in them). But there will be an extra energy in the house. An extra layer of happiness. And I have a feeling that once that happiness fills the house, we’ll struggle to remember what it was like without it. Kind of like how empty and slightly sad the house feels when our dog is not there. When Babydog is out for the night, I’m always sad a little, and struggle to remember what it was like without her joy filling the house. All I know is that our house wasn’t complete until she came along, even though we didn’t know it (okay I kind of knew it would be, having had dogs before). I suspect it’ll be the same with the kid. And we’re very much looking forward to discovering that unknown joy and rediscovering the joys of a celebrate season with this kid!

I hope Christmas, or your respective holidays found you happy and well this year. Have a fantastic 2010!

… and I apologize for not reading your blogs in a LOOONNG time. In addition to my general tendency to procrastinate, I’ve been limiting my laptop time in the hospital, so I’ve fallen waayy behind. I can’t promise I’ll catch up real soon, but I’ll try my darnedest!

Fare thee well, flightless friend

Last Sunday morning, after a night of heavy drinking and little sleep - so worthless there was no veritas which I could type in vino-ed - I was hanging out with a friend of mine when my foggy brain realized that, in his aviator sunglasses, he looked like Steve ... Austin. No. Steve Tyler. Not it either. Steve ... city in Texas; he's a Bloom County character ... Steve Dallas! Compare, here. As he likes the work of Berkeley Breathed, I believe he took the comparison as a compliment. I meant it as a complimentary observation, at least. Then I remembered, "Holy shit. We only have one week until Opus leaves the pages of the comic section, forever." I need to take the little bird out. I need to show him some love. I need to get caught up!

That week has passed, and Opus departed today.



When Breathed announced he'd return to comics, he struck a deal that Opus would be a half-page, front page, one-week only strip. Honey and I were thrilled. Who else but Breathed deserved such an honor? Like Postsecret, it became a Sunday ritual for me. What did Opus have to offer this Sunday morning? This week, I read the preceding four strips only, but I don't feel caught up at all. I had fallen behind in the last year or so. During that time, our paper moved it from the front page of the funnies to the second, then later the third page. Bastards. Also somewhere during that time, my thesis and performing and my job became all-consuming and taking an hour on Sunday to read through the paper became a luxury I didn't afford myself as often as I should have. I needed sleep. Or a drink. Or a Tylenol PM with a benadryl chaser and post-it note reminder to spend 5 minutes with my dear, suffering husband and dog.

Bloom County is the first comic I remember following. (Not that I'm a big comic follower.) It was such a fun world for me. The first time I remember noticing it was when my dad received a copy of Loose Tails for his 40th birthday, from a friend. A wheelchair-bound man bedecked with nerdy kids and wierdo animals? Something about the wheelchair attracted me. Was this about a guy in a wheelchair? What a wonderful country we live in, where one who can't walk can be the hero! And all the little critters and kids riding on him: it's like when my brother and cousins and I used to take turns riding on the back of my cousin S's chair! Awesome!

As I dug into it, it seemed to be less about Cutter John alone, as it was all the awkward misfits who inhabited Bloom County. It was smart and dorky. Kinda like I was when I was 10. Some days I was Milo, principled and precocious, others I was Binkley, clueless and a vegetable resemblant. Incidentally, when I learned that New Orleans' newspaper was called the Times-Picayune, I had a hard time believing that they didn't swipe the name from Bloom County's rag. As a teenager, I decided I should grow up to be Lola Granola; I'm wearing overalls as I type this, ready to garden a bit this afternoon, so maybe that's the connection anymore. I learned what a vegan was from Bloom County. After the aliens swapped Steve Dallas' brain, he ditched Republicanism, got a perm, gave up smoking and eschewed ingesting any animal products. And yes, even though I've been a Democrat since I was a kiddo, I loved Steve, as well. How can you not love a character so sexistly clueless - or cluelessly sexist? He was kind of the antithesis of Cutter John: strapping and healthy, selfish and a defendant of the status quo.

I loved how Bloom County celebrated our hopes and fears, our flaws and fantasies, our accomplishments and mistakes. It's the fault of cockroaches that Bush the elder chose Dan Quayle - I laminated that one, as it was from the last strip received at the doorstep of my native home before our big move downstate; a souvenir. Don't we all need a field of dandelions to escape to to ponder the meaning of life? And of course, there was Opus to love the most. I think I like him - and identify with him - because he's always a little out of place, but wide-eyed, receptive and hopeful. He, like me, suffers from foot-in-mouth disease ("Hare Krishnas = Hairy Fishnuts"). He's both a progressive and a traditionalist. He's a romantic at heart, but also a thinker - for real, he is. And he's got a penchant for silly hats. I don't have that penchant, but I have a deep admiration for it. In recent years, I've assumed that if I ever got a tattoo, it would probably be of Opus; maybe of him looking chastened. Of course, I'm not so sure that pudgy, perplexed penguin anywhere on my body would entice my husband's amourous fingertips to continue their tradition of tracing my curves. (That's for you, VirginiaGal ... you can open your eyes, now, or clean up the puke on your chin, depending on your reaction.)

Now he's gone to live in his fantasy. Even with being so far behind in reading the latest strip as to feel estranged, I can't help but feel loss. My pudgy penguin friend won't be there anymore to greet me on Sundays. My Steve-Dallas-doppelganger pal doesn't think this is the last from Breathed. He's sure he'll pull a Michael Jordan in a couple of years and resurrect something from Bloom County to run for a few years again. I'm not as convinced. Though, I'd be thrilled if he did. Certainly, I'll have the books to keep me company (note to self: ask for entire collection for Christmas?), he'll no longer be part of my Sunday. Who'll fill that gap? Boondocks? Our paper hasn't run that strip in about 2 years. Bastards. Doonesbury? Too overtly political - excellent, but I prefer foibled accessibility. Foxtrot? Puh-leeze. Maybe Pearls Before Swine or Non Sequitir. Apparently, Berkeley Breathed is going to focus on writing childrens' books. I guess if/when Honey and I have kids, I can use those as a starter drug to lure the bairn into the church of Bloom County. Our favorite Homer Simpson quote is, "Raising kids is easy. You teach them to hate the things you hate, and what with the internet and all, they practically raise themselves." I don't hate much, but I do hope I can inculcate them to appreciate the pen of Berke Breathed.

Wow! I can never watch that fantastic piece of cinema again!

This evening I was driving home, listening to a Pandora "quick mix" on my phone. "Hoppipolla" came on. It was the music played behind the Children of Men trailer a few years ago and it set my mind on a cinematic drift. Specifically, trying to recall what movies do I never want to see again? I do want to see Children of Men again sometime, but Honey tells me I shouldn't.

Allow me to explain, briefly. Honey saw Children of Men sometime last year. He highly recommended it. Said it was really stirring and urged me to see it so we could talk about it. So, a few months later, when he was out of town, I rented it and watched. With the company of a few beers (and a playful dog). "So what did you think?" he asked eagerly when he got home. I told him I liked it, but I wanted to see it again to really soak it in. Then I told him I was kinda buzzy when I watched it. "You were drunk?! You need to watch it again sober. If you were sober, you would never want to see that movie again! Watch it again - no beer! - and then we can talk!" It's been probably 9 months since that conversation. I have yet to sit down and try again. But that conversation - and the idea of a negative visceral reaction to a film - was brought back by the simple piano plunks of Sigur Ros.

So what movies can I never watch again, because my reaction was so visceral?

In no particular order, here are a few that come to mind:

1. A Clockwork Orange. A guy I was "messing around with" when I was freshman in college had this movie. We started the evening with several wine coolers (shut up, I was 18) and a viewing of Pink Floyd's The Wall and moved onto this classic later in the night. I have never had a stomach for cruelty in film or on the page. When Malcolm and his thugs invaded the home of the couple and rape the wife in front of the husband, I felt violated, myself. I felt like something had been taken from me. Not my innocence, but a part of my soul, maybe. Maybe my disgust at the scene was partly because I was watching this movie as the only woman in a room full of boys - all of us drunk - who just raved about how great this movie is. Seriously? Doesn't make me feel particularly great - or safe. I know, I know. Clockwork Orange is supposed to be about the relationship between violence and entertainment and moral authority and corruption and yadda, yadda, yadda ... Fine. I got that. Doesn't mean I can ever stomach it again. Rape in cinema? Hurtful. Rape while disabling the victim's partner? Wrenching.

2. Pan's Labyrinth. I really loved this movie. I can't ever watch it again, but I loved it. The fantasy. The beauty in the grotesque. The personal mythology. The Spanish language. Extraordinary soundtrack. (Couldn't shake the lullabye for months.) Yea!! I actually tried watching this again. Honey had rented it. I went downstairs while he had it on, caught about 3 minutes of it and had to go back upstairs. Again: the cruelty. And the cruelty in this film was particularly brutal. A son killed in front of his father - not shot, or anything simple and clean; bludgeoned. Routine torture. Self-surgery. Probably more rape; I blocked a lot of it from my memory. Icky and tragic stuff. And the world that the little girl creates for herself (or maybe really exists) is only marginally better than the hell in which she lives outside her imagination. Technically beautiful film. Eats your heart. Honey agrees that it's a movie he can never watch again. To be honest, I haven't found anyone who's said they can, or have.

3. Schindler's List. Confession. I have actually seen this movie more than once. Twice. But can you take a wild guess as to why I don't want to see it again? Cruelty! The second and last time I saw it was over a decade ago. It was on broadcast TV, no commercials, and maybe no editing. (I'm blanking on that, to be honest.) I guess this is one of those that I don't necessarily want to see again, but it's so gripping and frankly, culturally and historically important, that I would again. Like when we have kids, I won't hesitate to show them this when they're mature enough to grasp it all. [Sidebar: Growing up, my parents were fairly strict about rated-R films. We weren't allowed to see them before age 17. Schindler's List was one of the few exceptions. I was 16, my brother was 12. My folks sensed that this was bigger than the MPAA. I remember it being important for them that we saw it. Like when Dad took me to see Ghandi when I was six. Sub sidebar: That same year, The Secret of NIMH, an animated - though dark - flick about mice. NIMH terrified me. Dad had to take me about 3 times before I could handle it. In the end, I loved it. Ghandi, a 4-hour ouevre stuffed with strife and violence, was apparently just right for my 6-year-old movie palate. That one, I dragged Dad to thrice! What kind of mind is that?]

... okay, I've totally digressed at this point. I can't think of any other films, at this point, that I'd rather not see again, based on a negative visceral reaction. Anything turn your tummy?

ink, exercises in futility, fuzzy ambitions

Three beautiful things this Earth Day, a la Clare's blog, yet again.

1. The handstamp ink from last night's show faded into the back of my hand. The way the ink sunk into the crevices of my skin, the resulting pattern reminds me of a faded screen door, or a lesson in cross-hatch shading from 7th grade art class.

2. The mother in the grocery store yesterday with 3 children in her cart, negotiating with her son in the basket and her son hanging off the basket to stop fighting. "If you can be nice to eachother for 7 whole days, then you can pick out whatever toy gun you want. ... we'll make a chart and put it on the refrigerator so we can keep track." I couldn't hide how this cracked me up. I looked over at her and she glanced over the tops of their heads at me. We exchanged and amused look. We both know those boys can't last seven days, but we also both know that if they last at least one, she's gotten what she wanted out of the deal.

3. Dreaming last night that I was part of the Daily Show creative staff, even if the staff was completely fictional. Rob CordDETT?

Three Beautiful Things

since i've been stressed to the max, lately. i'm going to return to the 3BT formula which Clare has beautified the world with. plus, i think y'all would rather read what's going right in my life, for a change!

1. Despite a mix-up in the formatting of the signature page and sending it off at the wrong time, my first professor has dropped the signature pages back into overnight mail for me. I should get them tomorrow. How merciful that my prof doesn't mind doing the administrative bull on vacation!

2. Chatting with my favorite cousin on the phone this morning. And hearing her toddler, normally a terribly sweet, gregarious and precocious girl throw a fit in the background. She's being potty trained and apparently has a favorite kind of wet wipe, which my cousin didn't have available to her.

3. Knowing that well-placed, compassionate wisdom is a family trait. My cousin, after hearing of one of the stresses I've been under lately, emailed me some sympathetic encouragement her father, my dad's brother, gave to her when she was in a similar situation. And it sounded just like the kind of thing my dad would say to me - or anyone really. And he's so good at that kind of stuff. It warms my heart, for some reason, knowing it runs in the family.

Hard to balance heartache.

Parents do stupid things.

My sister in law once accidentally locked herself out of the house as she was retrieving mail. Not a big deal until you consider that my then - three year old nephew was taking a nap in his bedroom. She realized her error and managed to break into the house via the garage. My dad once forgot he was supposed to pick me up from school and left his Kindergartener daughter crying on the school steps for a couple of hours. (I don't remember if there were school aides waiting with me; but I assume so.) There will no doubt be times that Honey and I do stupid things as parents (if we're lucky enough to ever get that distinction) which are done out of carelessness or oversight or during a bungled emergency. Nonetheless, I find I have decreasing sympathy for parents who seem outright derelict in their duty.

Last weekend, Honey and I took in a 9PM showing of Ratatouille. It was cute, but frankly, I can't tell you too much of it because most of what I remember of the movie-going experience involved a friendly pre-lingual toddler. He could not have been more than 22 months old. His parents saw fit to bring him and his three year old sister to a movie which would not let out until 11PM. The children were, thankfully, quiet, but their parents' behavior was rather disquieting. We were in a theater with stadium seating. Honey and I were at the fore of the top section, so that we had the railing in front of us, the floor and bottom seating section were below us. The childrens' parents took seats on either end of the handicap accessible seating at the top of the bottom section and let their children wander. During a movie. In a large room filled with strangers. In the dark. The little boy was really adorable and had we met under different conditions, I wouldn't have thought anything of it. But as the parents kept their backs to the children - in a dark room filled with strangers - only to check in on them ever 30 seconds or so and to retrieve them when they began to wander up the steps of the top section, I could not fully enjoy the movie. Why? Because, I felt like I had to keep my eye constantly open for this little boy in case someone did try to nab him. His parents certainly weren't doing it. Safety aside, it's simply rude to let your kids run around a movie theater. People are there to enjoy the film, not your cell phone text messaging session, not your comments to the screen and not your toddler's happy dance in the aisle! It's called, "pop for a babysitter or wait for the DVD," buddy. If you know your three year old can sit through a movie, bring her and let the other parent babysit.

What irks me most about this is that clearly, some people have no concept of safety, when it is their moral charge as parents to do everything in their power to ensure the safety of their children. I have been in a cave lately, so I just learned of this today, but when I did, I thought immediately of the parents at the movie theater. Little Madeliene McCann was nabbed from her family's resort apartment room while on vacation in Portugal. It's truly tragic and terrifying. But when I learned that the parents had put her and her 2 year old twin siblings down for the night in the room unattended while they went off to dinner for the evening, I was sadly unsurprised. How easy would it be for someone to break a window and take her? Or a hotel staffer who has a key to waltz in and nick her? Then when I read that her parents had actually left the room door and the patio doors unlocked I was livid. That's not just a stupid parent move - like leaving your kid in the car for 10 minutes to run in to buy milk - that's patently negligent. If that family were American, those parents would be arrested and separated from their remaining children. Who leaves toddlers unattended while you're 100 yards away?! (That's the length of a football field, mind you!) It's not as if her parents were 19 year old dumb kids. They're doctors!! I understand that abduction is not as common in England as it is in the US, so for the sake of those who live in "more civilized" societies, let's pretend kidnapping does not exist, that children are at no danger of ever being nabbed and harmed. You still don't leave a couple of toddlers alone in a hotel room to sleep! What if one of them falls off the bed and bangs her head? Or another wakes in the night and pulls the TV on top of himself? Doctors don't understand this?!

I certainly cannot begin to imagine the bereavement these parents must be feeling, nor their sense of guilt. I do feel sorry for them. But in my mind, they are just as accountable for their daughter's loss as the villain who took her. This was not a momentary separation from their child at the store or in a crowd or even a missed rendezvous because of poor parent communication. This wasn't even a piss-poor decision to let their kid run around a movie theater under a lazy parental eye. Theirs was a deliberate decision to leave their pre-literate children alone in a hotel room in a foreign country without even giving them the barest dignity of a secured room. They could not respect their children enough to lock. the. door. I have immense sympathy for the little girl. I pray that this comes to a happy ending for her. And I hope other parents take a moment and get a clue from this.

What's Molly Dreaming Now? Edition 2

Since going full throttle on trying to slay my thesis, my dream life has been waning. Friday night, though, I had a very strange and vivid dream. I'll do this like the last one and give you the details and let you guys tell me what you think.

Honey and I have apparently moved to a new house which he bought without me having seen it. I am not upset by this; it was a good purchase and the previous owners left a lot of their old furniture so that saved us money and effort. I can't tell what city we're in. It's clearly some old East Coast American city with a colonial history: Philly, Baltimore, Williamsburg, I dunno. It is a monstrous townhouse in the middle of a row of townhouses. I'm not talking a big, modern townhouse like you see in developments all over the place. I mean a monstrous townhouse amidst other other monstrosities amidst the quaint, colonial historical part of town. For some reason, the Disney company has seen fit to run a monorail tunnel through the townhouses. Not through the living areas, but there's a tunnel beneath the first floor; like we don't have basements because the tunnel is in our basements. And the tunnel for this transport system emerges outside our kitchen window. We're not an end unit, but still the tunnel spits out and turns basically between our house and the neighbors. It's odd. Odder still, people emerge from the tunnel on foot, not just on the monorail cars. (Incidentally, here's an adorable diversion.)

Okay, so I've taken Babydog on a walk and come home and then I've gone out and run some more errands. Each time I come home, I comment on how I like the paint on the walls or how the old furniture still jives with my style or whatever. When I come back from running errands. I see Honey lying on the sofa with a tiny baby on his chest. The baby's wearing a pink onesie. I don't remember the dialogue that transpired between Honey and me, but for whatever reason it became apparent that this child was our daughter. ... and I didn't remember having had a baby.

So I take the baby into my arms - she's probably a month old - and try to become familiar with her. We haven't given her a name. She has a soft nest of dark hair, an incredibly round head, very round eyes and large, jutting, Stephen Colbert-shaped ears. Essentially, she looks nothing like Honey or me. I rifle through my memory and begin having vague recollections of being pregnant, but only 5 or 6 months so, not enough to have produced a baby. But I accept it and begin to grow comfortable with the idea that I have a baby - not that I am a mother, but that I have a baby. I'm happy that it's a girl. I then remember she was born on January 15, 2008. So it's now like April, 2008 in my dream. I hold up the baby by her armpits because she's able to hold her own head at this point, or at least do that weird neck-scrunch thing. And now, she's naked. I think to myself, "well, I hate January, but I guess I'll like it, now."* She begins to cry - scream really - and her mouth opens wider than anything I've ever seen. It's freakish and hilarious. She's like a wide-mouth bass or a cartoon baby (as illustrated above) and she's letting it roar. ... and that, we decide, she got from me.

The dream dissipated shortly after that. But what was weirdest to me was that I didn't feel an instant affinity for the baby. Honey and I were tickled by her and we were fully committed to caring for her, but it was more like she was a new curiosity than our child. I was not indifferent to her, but I wasn't inspired by her.

*side note, because I know VA Gal will say something: a ton of my favorite people are January babies, so I know the month in which one is born has no bearing on one's character. I'm just not a fan of January past, say, the 7th or 8th. If I could I would jump from January 10 directly to April 1, every year.

So what does my dream mean? ... a little history: a lot of our friends and family are having babies these days. We are in the process of replacing windows in our house. Have fun!