Girl's first Halloween

T. attended her first costume party on Saturday. See above. I considered reusing the costume today, but today was my first day back to work since the conference and it was enough to get here with all of the things I usually forget so I just couldn't do it. Instead she sported her orange puffy vest and black pants. It was seasonal.

There is much more to say, but I have a lot of work to catch up on and I'm also having a very angry afternoon (mad about reuniting with the pump, mad about the grossbutgoodforyou kale salad I brought for lunch, mad about the low quality kit kats I've been eating to offset the aforementioned, mad that I'm so so tired even though I got in bed at 7:45 last night), so it'd be more constructive to wait until it all feels less edgy.

Hindsight

The next time an opportunity like this conference comes up, I really hope that some experienced parent, someone with a long memory, not the "babies are so transportable at this age" sort, will offer me some unsolicited advice. As I was preparing for this trip I really needed someone to say, "G'brarian, honestly, you really don't want to take this trip. You're not proving anything to anyone by going. It's going to be really expensive for you and your employer, you won't be able to focus on any of the content of the conference, and you'll be tired and grouchy when you return. Yes, I know the appeal of seeing your friends and your mom is there, but do that some other time," or something along those lines.

I don't know what I was running on these past few days, some combination of adrenaline and cookies, but whatever it was, it all ran out about an hour after we got home yesterday. All I could do was lay around in bed, I couldn't even look at the girl, made C. take her out. This was the first time I could imagine how weaning would go. After spending almost 5 days with her, sleeping almost none of it, and enduring two cross-country flights with her on my lap, the thought of giving up any more personal space just about sent me over the edge.

Maybe T.'s a bit of a homebody because she slept much better last night back in her own space, and so did I. I've taken an incredibly long shower, had some coffee and things are slowly coming back into focus. I wish I could thank all of our neighbors crammed into coach yesterday, the old man who fascinated T. with his arhythmic clapping game, the other fellow who said that T. was lucky to have me for a mom, and all of the other folks who complimented my "little guy" (sometimes it's too exhausting to keep saying that she's a girl, she's just wearing red and brown) for being so good, because all of the little niceties made it just a little bit better, and most of all, T. thanks for holding that poo-xplosion for the carride home.

Going to stick around town for a while...

The next day.

This is not easy. I didn't sleep at all last night and faced the morning meetings on an empty stomach with no coffee. Not really able to network as I should, although I sucked at this pre-motherhood anyway. On the upside, I've new ideas for T.'s Halloween costume. Why not a colonist!

Conferring with the baby

Reporting in from Philadelphia where I'm at a conference, and by extension so is T. Flying alone with baby is not nearly as bad as I'd expected. No need for the emergency outfit (for her or me), just lots of airplane rides in the airplane, lots of hanging out in the back talking to the flight attendants, lots of wishing the guy next to me would have moved when the flight attendant offered him an equally good aisle seat so that the woman with the baby could have a little more space. We lucked out with the Economy Plus (plus is code for an extra 2.5 inches) and with the secret security line which is clearly meant for celebrities and people with babies. On one side of the terminal there was a mile long line with a mean man barking orders about fluids and such, and on the other, there is a secret line where everyone is nice and helps you remove your laptop from its bag and crosses their fingers along with you that you won't set off the alarm because wouldn't it be mean to search a lady with a baby and when the alarm rings because you forgot about your cellphone in your back pocket, they're really really nice and it's all okay. Next time you depart from SFO, look for the secret line. You'll be glad you did.

We were met in Phila. by T.'s Auntie E. who totally rallied for the occasion. She drove up from DC, waited for us, took the girl, and dragged our tremendous amount of luggage out to the car. We installed T.'s carseat (yes, we brought the carseat) and were off to the hotel in minutes. We had a nice visit, got our hands on some dinner (not sure why I went for the Philly Cheese Steak pizza) and T. gurgled obligingly until it was time to go to sleep. Falling asleep in a hotel pack 'n play has never been T.'s idea of a good time, so last night was tough (even after the calming bath in the hotel sink), tonight a little less so, although it's still too early to say.

Today E. watched T. in the morning while I had meetings and then all of T.'s grandparents converged on room 1016. C's parents drove down from NJ to see the girl and my mom flew up from Florida. The former left after lunch and a brief visit, the latter is "crashing" (do grandmothers crash?) at my work-sponsored hotel, babysitting and shuttling T. from hotel to convention center when she needs to nurse. It makes for many slightly rude departures mid-talk, but T.'s not the kind of girl who waits patiently for the meeting to break.

I'm hoping to see some of the city besides the hotel room and the conference rooms--I predict that our trio will bag on part of tomorrow afternoon's program and take in the sights. A person can take only so much powerpoint and we are in such an architecturally heavy place. Not going to leave here without glimpsing a little Frank Furness...

Solids introduced.

Despite my thorough reading of Super Baby Food, we ignored most of Ruth Yaron's well-meant advice and gave the ravenous little girl some brown rice cereal this afternoon. She watched with great interest as we prepared the mixture and as her dad offered her a taste, she promptly grabbed the spoon and sucked it all down.

We were going to wait for her proper six month birthday when I return from this conference I'm going to next week (with T.), but something about her recent behavior made us opt for now. It's a little sad to surrender my role as primary nutrient provider in such an unceremonious way, but the girl comes from a long line of hearty appetites and it was only a matter of time. Plus, seeing her ingest all of the few minispoonfuls we gave her so vigorously and with extremely little spillage suggests that the time was right.

This will definitely complicate my packing.

the learning curve and its asymptote.

(I hesitate to write about this due to the gross out factor, but I feel like I won't stop living it until it's been typed out.)

Five months into it, there are times when things still go wrong, drastically wrong, in the babycare arena. At those times, I feel like T. is looking at me and thinking, "Mom, that is such a novice move." Yesterday, she might have also thought, "Mom, you know that if I'm not tired and not hungry, the first thing you should do is check my diaper. Duh. Duh. Duh. That's so month 1. Keep your head in the game."

We were on a thrift store expedition yesterday, perfectly timed between naps and feedings. The walk was great, the browsing also great, and when T. got a little fussy? bored?, I took her out of her stroller and it all seemed fine. Why, why, didn't I think to check her diaper? We were checking out the "quality collection" at the Salvation Army, looking for a respectable shirt for me to wear to the conference I'm going to next week, when suddenly I felt wetness in her pants. Before I had much time to react, the sewage was spilling down her leg. I grabbed every spare burp cloth/bib/blanket I had out of the diaper bag and pled for the cashier to get me some paper towels. There was a bathroom somewhere, but I didn't know where and really didn't want to leave a HanselandGretel-style trace of shit behind us. The short of it then: someone brought paper towels. I spread them on the floor, put the changing pad on them, stripped the girl and did my part to keep the babywipes industry in business.

The cashier was extremely nice and made it seem totally normal that I would change an extremely nasty diaper in the middle of the store. She kept saying how she was a mother and totally understood my predicament. But, because she was a mother, she also offered lots of useful advice. Our conversation went like this:
Cashier: Oh, I thought she was a boy!
Geobrarian: No, she's just wearing green.
C: Is that diarrhea?
GB: I guess you could call it that, but she's a baby. It alway is.
C: You should ask the doctor about that.
GB: Thanks. It's pretty normal though since she doesn't eat food.
C: Is that all your going to do?
GB: Well, I think I got all of it and I'll give her a bath when we get home.
C: Yes, definitely a bath. She doesn't have socks?
GB: They're soiled too.
C: Wait, you should get her hands too.
GB: (Thinking: My baby is on the floor of the Salvation Army store, totally naked and I really just want to buy my Ann Taylor cast-off and get the hell out of here. Thanks for your help, but lay off woman.)
Thanks so much for your help.
C: Other people, they don't understand. Me, I'm a mother. I understand.

I only hope that if I'm on the other end of that scenario one day, I'll be as understanding (perhaps a little less questioning, but just as understanding).

On constructing a mom persona

When I look back to my childhood, I have very distinct memories of the various mom personae I encountered. I remember the mom who arrived at the Brownies pick-up wearing only a long fur coat and a tennis outfit. Then there was the mom who led the Brownie troop. I have no memories of her fashion sense, but I do remember that she had authority and no one in our group of spoiled girls gave her any shit. There was also one mom who would call up my mom ahead of the back-to-school shopping season and tell her this year's must-have brand. I have no idea where she gleaned this information, but it was always spot-on. One year she called to let us know that Champion brand sweatshirts were it. You know, just a plain sweatshirt with a "C" embroidered on the chest. So strange.

In this light, I've begun to wonder what my mom persona will be. Right now I am the forgetful mom. I have this paranoia that the daycare teachers talk about me and say: "Oh, T's mom. She's nice, but that woman can't remember shit." In the last few weeks, on different days, I have forgotten the following:

wallet (with ID that serves as train pass)
cellphone (or I've remembered to bring an uncharged cellphone)
nipples for bottles (day care requires that the bottles are ready-to-go)
connector that joins my brand of bottle to my brand of breast pump

and yesterday, the best slip up ever: all of the pump parts which I dutifully carted home last Friday to give a proper cleaning. I spent the day bicycling back and forth to daycare to feed T. because that was the only option. I didn't get much work done, but I did get to hang out with the girl.

After yesterday, I got everything ready ahead of time last night. I refilled her diaper bag, packed lunch, prepared pumping and feeding accessories, everything short of picking out clothes, but even with all of this forethought, I still managed to forget something crucial: the key to my bike lock. I ended up walking the mile from daycare to my office.

I know all of this is totally normal and part of the process of returning to work, but it's warping my emerging mom persona. In the short term, I hope I can exchange the absent-minded mom cloak for the bad-ass handmade baby costume one. We'll see.

The poncho.

A good weekend, and now one the extra day since I don't work on Mondays. Hard to remember why I was complaining so much last week...

T. models a poncho made by one of my coworkers.

I want to be like ?

Yesterday, on day two of my second ass-kicking daycare cold, I arrived late for a 3 hour meeting not only because the train system had another "incident" but also because if I'm about to walk into a meeting late, I might as well pump beforehand. When I finally made it to meeting no one seemed to notice so I sat down quietly, opened the thermos of mint tea that C. had prepared for me and tried not to spray my germs on anyone. It's easy to drift in and out in meetings such as these, and as my thoughts wandered, I looked around the room at the strange bunch of people I call colleagues and realized that (a) I liked these misfits and (b) perhaps I should try to model my career trajectory after one of them. That's when it occurred to me that although I work in a library and librarianship is traditionally a "woman's profession," I couldn't look around this room of 40 or so people and find anyone in my situation.

Let me explain. I would estimate that there's at least one moment every day when I want to quit (because of daycare, the commute, the mornings, the evenings, but most importantly because I miss little T. and lately the first thing she does when she sees me in the evening is cry as if she suddenly realized that I've been gone all day and she was tricked into taking a bottle again. It can be so harsh.). The moment passes when I remember that I can't quit and that in the larger picture, I don't really want to quit, and so I contemplate options:

I work for a while because I am noticing that it might actually be easier to work with a small baby than with an older youngster. I could then reconsider when C. finishes school and we have to plot our next move. Do I care about my career? It's hard to say. Part of me wants to achieve something workwise to make T. proud, part of me is nervous about not working and transferring nascent feelings of guilt to T., as in "I did this for you" when in reality I'd probably do it as much for me as for her. But. Honestly, I just can't imagine a life of 7 am-7 pm commute/work and not being around when the little girl returns from her daily adventures.

So, back to the meeting. When I looked around, I saw that, as far as I know, there were no women in the room with children under 10 (15?). This is not a judgment of the women, but more of a judgment of the organization. There's the over-50, kids out of the house, group. It's not clear how they managed when their kids were young. Then there are women in their 30s who potentially will/could reproduce. And, there are many, many women in their late 30s and 40s who for various reasons have not had children. Does this type of job in this setting attract women who don't want children? The only woman in a similar job to me with young kids recently left. What does this say?

I don't know. It's been a long week. It's Friday. Hopefully we will take T. to a pumpkin patch this weekend and it'll be really damn cute and after 3 days at home with her, I'll be ready to do it all again.