Shut 'er down!

The blog has been a little heavy on politics lately, but it's been a huge factor in my life. Don't get me wrong, it's impossible to avoid altogether in DC, but it rarely intrudes upon my non-work life and choices. Today, however, could be the last day I'm at work for a while. On the financial front, any shut down would be hard. A long one could be disastrous.

I am looking forward to extra time with the kids, though. Maybe it will even make a transition to a new nanny easier.

It's funny to see people outside DC start paying attention to what's going on in detail. I've had countless conversations with far flung friends about the 24 hour rule, how procedures work in the House, and why this isn't really about the budget any more. If you have questions, throw 'em at me here as well. I can certainly be partisan on certain themes, but on this I think I'm pretty damn objective/analytical.

It'll be interesting to see who gets blamed here. For me, I think it was inevitable. The political parties have so much power, and the climate of 24 hour news focuses on everything as a fight. Every debate is something to be won or lost, and the parties and individual elected officials clearly know that every vote comes with a notch on a belt that their constiuents will be told about repeatedly on FOX, CNN, and MSNBC. What incentive do they have to cooperate and play nicely? Compromise looks like weakness in the press, and you need good press to get re-elected, not to mention have the political capital needed for the next vote.

So we have 536 people who know they'll get ahead by being obstreperous. Duh.

The only question becomes how we change it, and that I just don't know.

Research. Obsessively.

A post at one of my fave Mommy blogs just got my research juices flowing, and I needed to share. I was a psychology major in college, which at the time felt like a huge indulgence. Picking a major because I LIKE it? Shame on me. I should be picking something USEful. So I double majored, and while the Government major probably helped me get jobs and into grad school, the psych has a lot more to do with how I think about policy. A lot more.

Regardless, I'm one of those rare dorky people who actually likes reading published research. I don't mean the executive summaries, people, I mean the 20+ pages in academic journals that detail all of the survey development and sampling methodology that let me decide whether I trust their data for myself.

So when I became a Mom, I started turning this propensity on to researching things for my kids. As I've alluded to before, I had a terrible time breastfeeding and was really incredibly hard on myself about it. If my body couldn't make milk, should I even have been a Mom in the first place? My total devotion to (ok obsession with) this failure landed me straight in post partum depression, until a number of things happened to show me that Monkey needed me to be happy and healthy more than she needed to nurse.

A few good friends smacked me around, verbally speaking, and gave me the strength to figure out that not being able to nurse was not the end of the world. And when I could see a little more clearly, I turned to the research. And you know what? It's not that big a deal! I won't go into it here, 'cause I know it's ridiculously hot button for some people, but it was clear to me that the numbers did not prove any harm would be done to my children by skipping the breastmilk. And the research empowered me to get back to the most important business of caring for my child.

Phew. Didn't mean to go there, actually, but there it is.

Blog Challenge - Day 26.

Day 26. What would you like your Grandchildren to remember about you one day?

These questions are getting intense! Apologies if they're too serious, but I wouldn't be doing them justice if I wasn't sincere. If you've read back the past month or two, you know that we've had a heck of a winter, and I'm not talking about weather. Lots of illness, a few real scares, and a Hubbie working around the clock leaving me to go solo much of the time. I've reoriented quite a few fundamentals of our life, and been pretty pleased with how we've fared. But I had a Eureka! moment about a month ago.

You see, I'm a consensus builder by nature, and I'm always trying to make as many people happy as possible. But consensus building doesn't work when you're hanging by a thread, and there were too many decisions that just couldn't wait until the next time I got to see or even talk to my husband. Much less actually have a long conversation with him.

So I started just acting without consulting, and it dawned on me one night that what this family needed was a Matriarch. A good, old fashioned, this.is.how.it's.done Matriarch. No nonsense, no consensus needed. (That doesn't mean he doesn't have a say, but it means he trusts me to know when he really wants to have input. Funny - turns out he did all along.) Matriarch meaning there are things we do, and things we don't, and that's the end. Not by making it about me personally or what I want, but by sheer force of will.

So of course I want my Grandchildren to think of me as warm, and kind, and involved. As always, always available to them; as a shelter in a storm. But I think I'm going to need that mantle of the lady that held it all together. Although if I'm truly successful, they shouldn't ever know that I had it.

Blog Challenge - Day 24. The home stretch!

Day 24. What is God teaching you presently?

This question is both harder and easier for me than it was a few years ago. Then, I would have told you that I was more of a science kind of girl. My exploration of faith was pretty static, although I've always known there has to be something beyond our understanding. What's outside of our universe? OK, and after that? And after that? What about after that? It all has to end somewhere, right? Right?

You get the picture.

Becoming a parent puts faith in an entirely different light. I look at those two people that came, conceivably, from nothing. Sperm, egg, blah blah blah. Biology doesn't capture the creation of new existence. The sheer, from absolutely nothing, coming to being of a new person. There's no way you can tell me miracles don't exist. No. Way.

We don't make it to church very often, mostly because the kids are not exactly good pew sitters these days. Monkey is old enough for Sunday school this year, but Lion is a ways off, and we aren't comfortable enough with the church nursery to leave him there. But since Monkey was born there's been a kind of peace in just being there. It's a chance to contemplate and be grateful. To focus on what is most important of what we have, or the most fundamental of the struggles around us. I feel better every time I'm there.

But that wasn't the question, you say. Becoming a Mom has created a new awareness of, and surrender to, forces outside my understanding. I've traditionally prided myself on analysis and reason, so that's quite a sea change. Couple that with my traditional strengths of ridiculous multi-tasking and flying by the seat of my pants, and you don't end up with a calm, consistent, confidence-inspiring Mommy. But here's the rub - at the end of the day, I'm entirely and intimately consumed by these kids' every move. That's a pretty loaded way to go through life, and it can make a girl a raw ball of nerves.

So I'm learning; no, I'm teaching myself, to chill. To have a game plan so their little misbehaviors can't push my buttons, or at least so they don't see it. To think long-term, and about the kinds of people I want them to be. To stop teaching them to listen, and start helping them make the right decisions for themselves.

That all sounds good, right? It's really hard. Particularly when I'm tired and stressed. Which is always. But that's what God is teaching me about myself. So there.

Blog challenge - Day 23.

Day 23 - Who's your celebrity look-alike?


I've been told Gillian Anderson (you know, the X-Files chick) and Mena Suvari. Neither of them really resonate with me, but I guess I can see bits and pieces.

That's it. Not very exciting, I know.

Blog Challenge - Day 22.

Day 22. What did you do today?

Ha. This is easy compared to other topics this challenge has been throwing at me.

I got up after only two hits of the snooze button. Took a shower and did hair and makeup, all while Lion was starting to make his sweet baby noises in his room. Come get me, please? Drank in the thuds of everything in his crib hitting the ground one-by-one, each followed by a soft little, "Oh-oh."

Checked the blackberry calendar to see if I needed to wear a suit today. Yup. Blech.

Opened the door to Monkey's room so she knew she could get up when she felt like it. The luxury of spring break and not having to rouse her from lazing in bed. Got dressed. Received Miss Sleepyhead as she stumbled out of her room and declared she wanted to get dressed. And that she would be pretending to do ballet today, so she needed a skirt. Got her dressed. Finally responded to Lion's ever more insistent noises and headed downstairs with the both of them. Trailed Monkey to the basement to snag a tutu from the dress-up chest. Convinced her it was okay for our nanny to pour her cereal while I packed up to go. Started coffee.

Stalled. Gave multiple rounds of kisses and I Love You's. Tried to convince Hubby to give me a ride so I didn't have to pay for parking today. Failed.

Retrieved coffee, phone, and blackberry. Gave another few rounds of kisses, and finally left the house. Drove to work.

And that's really the end of the day, at least until I get home tonight. You don't care what happens in between, 'cause it's not the important part.

Nononono more blog challenge.

So, I think the blog challenge served it's purpose, just more quickly than expected. I'm still going to do it, at least for a while, but I'm not going to try to make up the upcoming weekend posts. Here are the three topics for today, Saturday, and Sunday. I'm choosing one, and calling a skip on the other two.

Day 11. Post a recipe. Or if you don't cook, try a new recipe and write about how it turned out (pictures please!).
Day 12. Write about what wears you out as a woman.
Day 13. A YouTube video.

Day 13 wins, if only because I have an awesome video to share. iPhone, not YouTube. It's my Monkey, in one of the cutest moments ever, and definitely ever captured on video. Apparently the music moved her. I actually have about five videos of this, since she kept right on dancing and ultimately dance-paraded around most of the store. Yes, around the super-sized wine and beer store. My then-two year old. We're good parents, I swear.

Is that not the cutest thing you've ever seen? It's been over a year and I still giggle/well up over it.

Falling off the wagon.

I think I'm falling... jumping?... off the blog challenge wagon. I did it because I loved the ideas of what to write about, and liked the structure I though it would impose. Yes, structure. I've already told you I'm boring. But I don't have time to write about anything else, and of course (of course!) I'm suddenly full of things I want to write about. So maybe the challenge has served it's purpose already?

But really, I hate not finishing something I've started. Makes me feel like a bad egg. A quitter. so I'm arguing with myself. If you can't finish a blog challenge what CAN you commit to?

You'll see what I decide.

In the meantime, my winter routine continues apace. Kid gets sick, kid gets medicine. Kid starts to feel better, someone else gets sick. We've been there nearly constantly since November. I think it started the day before Thanksgiving, actually. Got a new presciption for Monkey yesterday - she has an ear infection. Since Lion had a double last week, I know where it came from. Although it marks the first time he gave something to his sister and not the other way around. Way to go, Lion! I love milestones.

On the up-side, I think we found a new primary doc at the pediatrician's. I've been jumping around to find someone else there since deciding I couldn't depend on the current one. But the woman yesterday was AWEsome. She's new to the practice, so pretty easy to get appointments with, and she was SO good with Monkey. My big girl did the whole exam by herself; followed all the instructions, didn't flinch at a thing. Giggled tons, which is impressive considering how uncomfortable she was. Huge relief to me to have someone I know I can ask for at appointment time. Yay!

Blog challenge - Day 9

What virtues do you value in yourself?

Hmmm, this is a hard one for me, because everything I value in myself I can also see as a negative in certain situations.  I'm not particularly romantic about these things, apparently.

Pro:  I have a big heart and I always give people the benefit of the doubt.  I avoid criticizing people at all costs.  I want everyone around me to be happy, even if I end up the only unhappy one.  This is part of my oldest child of divorced parents shtick.  I like to solve people's problems. 

Con:  I get walked all over sometimes.  I also really struggle with giving constructive feedback, and by the time I'm ready to say something that might be construed as negative, I'm probably pretty worked up about it, and that does not make for a productive conversation.  Once my switch is flipped, I'm completely fed up.  No middle ground.  The other con here is that I probably care too much about what other people think in general.

Pro:  I'm very progress-oriented.  My husband, while we were dating, told me that one of the things he admired in me was that I was always trying to improve myself.  It's probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, and it was one of those moments where I knew he really 'got' me.  I'm always looking for the next step - be it learning about developmental areas for the kids, snapping up off-season bargains on things they'll need next year, considering what family to see over Thanksgiving and how it will impact Christmas and Easter, and so on.  I'm highly planned and always aware of contingencies.  I've been told I would be FABULOUS at emergency management for just this reason.

Con:  It's totally paralyzing.  You can never accommodate every 'what-if' hypothetical, and trying to come up with a strategy to cover them all makes actually pulling the trigger on a big decision torturous.

Pro:  This is probably obvious from the other two, but I really think things through before I do them.  I take my commitments incredibly seriously, from significant promises to friends down to RSVPs.  If I take some action, I will totally own it.  If wasn't willing to talk about it, I wouldn't have done it in the first place.  Maybe this is an offshoot of growing up and working around politics, but I call it the Washington Post rule.  If you aren't willing to have it on the front page of the newspaper, then don't do it!  Maybe that's why I have a high comfort level with blogging.  While I'm a fairly private person unless you know me well, this dynamic makes me very forthcoming.  It's also probably why several people over my lifetime have asked if I want to run for office someday.  To which I say NONONONONONO NONONONONO!  Hell, no.  Ugh.  Shudder.  No.  I should probably take it as a compliment, but I mostly find it very confusing, since I don't consider myself to be remotely like what I know about public office holders in either good or bad ways.  And would NEVER survive that lifestyle.

Con:  I don't take risks lightly.  I've had my wild moments, and definitely done things I regret, but there aren't too many and I know (believe you me!) what they are.  There are only a very few I feel strongly I'd like to take back.   As I get older, though, I sometimes wish I had lived more freely (not loosely, people.  Freely.)  Taken more risks.  Tried  unconventional paths and been more open to new and unusual experiences.  Not been so serious.  Had more fun?

Blog Challenge - Day 8.

Have a beauty secret (e.g. hair tip, make up tip)? Share, please!

[Note from the editor - I'm now officially caught up from the weekend!  Yay, me!]

Back to business.  I'm not really a make-up guru.  I do wear it everyday, though, and I do NOT leave the house without it.  But my generally feeling is that if you know I'm wearing makeup, I'm wearing too much.  I'm pretty fair, with light hair and light eyes, and without eye makeup you can't even be certain I have eyes.  At all.  So my morning routine involves under eye concealer (thanks, kids!), neutral shadow, dark liner, and mascara.  Plus light cover up to even out skin tone; otherwise I look like I'm wearing too much blush every day.  Or a circus clown.  No biggie, right? 

That sounds like a lot of makeup to many people, but it's how I feel comfortable presenting myself to the world.  I thought that made me superficial until a good friend cited the old "You look good, you feel good" cliche.  And she's right.  Confidence means so much, and people do treat you differently depending on how you look.  It's not right, on principle, but it's true.  

I use a variety of department and drug store brands, and I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear if anyone has a liner that won't smudge.  My eyes tend to water throughout the day, and even though I present the challenge to every makeup counter I find, no one has yet introduced me to a liner that won't make me look like a racoon by 6pm.  I'm tired of traveling with the supplies I need to touch it up.  Truthfully, I have a stash at work, but I only use it if I have somewhere special to go in the evening.  So most days are not pretty by the end.  I'm sure I'm harder on myself and that people don't actually notice, but it has to contribute to making me look tired and unkempt, right?

That doesn't answer the question at all, does it? 

Honestly, my best tip is dry shampoo.  Oscar Blandi.  My personal vanity's cross to bear is that I have very fine and thin hair.  Flat and limp.  Not only does it buy me an extra day between washes, it increases the diameter of each hair, and my hair looks *better* on day 2 than freshly washed.  Amazing.  I've actually thought about using it EVERY day.  Maybe I'll try that tomorrow.

Blog Challenge - Day 7.

Day 7. Do you believe in the "cry until he sleeps" method?

Yup.  I do.  Monkey required approximately zero sleep training - she's generally been more difficult to wake up than to put to bed.  When we told people that, they universally advised us we would NOT be so lucky with our second child.  You know what?  They were wrong.  Lion is a pretty rock star sleeper, too.  Sometimes he stirs in the middle of the night, but he usually goes right back to sleep.  And when he wakes up in the mornings, he's totally happy to chill and play in his bed until we come get him.  Love that kid.

He wasn't always that way, though.  He started sleeping through the night when he was two or three months old, and we thought we were golden.  The he got sick, and we would come in and hold him in the middle of the night until he went back to sleep, which he apparently liked.  Truth be told, I really liked it to.  Treasured it.  Then he got better and, smart kid that he is, had no intention of losing his snuggle time.  After all, a second child doesn't get a lot of one-on-one.  We tried lots of things - feeding him more, putting him down later, getting him more outside time, whatever.  Nothing worked, and when he hit four months old I returned to work a tired mess. 

It took four more months to realize my career was on the verge of crashing down around me because I couldn't see straight.  I was getting up once or twice a night, and had been almost continuously since the sleeplessness started sometime mid-third trimester.  One night I woke up sitting on the floor of our room, my hand jammed between the bed frame and mattress.  I have no idea how I got there - maybe I fell asleep standing up and then fell?  Or maybe I was sleep walking?  I have no history (that I know of) of doing that.  Maybe I was getting in or out of bed for something and slipped?  Regardless, it was seriously disconcerting.  What if I'd been holding him at the time?  In any case, my hand hurt for several weeks and served as a sort of wake up (no pun intended) call that my body/psyche was NOT happy with how things were going. 

So we tried the Ferber thing - let him cry for ten minutes, go in and soothe him, then leave.  Stretch to 15 minutes.  But going in and then leaving would only get him more worked up, and it quickly became clear the strategy wouldn't work.  So we went to full cry-it-out.  And we learned that Lion, mellow as he usually is, has inherited the family stubborn side.  (We should have known this, considering every relative on both sides of our family for generations is darn stubborn, but whatever.  We could hope.)  This first night he literally cried for hours.  It was terrible.  The second night, he only went for an hour and a half, and the third night was cake.  It was over.

He's been sick and/or teething a lot since then, and when he's hurting you can be sure I'm in there post haste to comfort him.  So we've probably backslid a bit on the sleep training, and I hope we don't have to do anything like it again.  But we won't know until we make it through the winter sick season, get a teething hiatus, and he has no more excuses.  So here's hoping I won't have occasion to write about it again. 

Blog Challenge - Day 6.

Day 6. Your most embarrassing moment.

Oh, boy.  Here we go.  Most of my embarrassing moments have to do with not holding it together, or not putting myself forward in a way I can be proud of.  It's not very significant, but the first one that comes to mind is from fifth grade.  There had been sort of a nasty smell in the classroom for a while, and somehow someone decided it was coming from my desk.  I was sort of a geek, and fifth grade was probably the height of my torment - my classmates were pretty open in their scorn of me.  This is one of my greatest fears for my kids - that they'll experience the kind of bullying and misery that I did at that age.  This was before bullying was a hot topic, and the school did pretty much nothing about it.  Honestly, I probably shouldn't worry about the kids - they seem to get their social skills from their Dad's side of the family, and it's a pretty social gang.  My sister in law was a queen bee of sorts; the girl I would have been PETRIFIED of in school, and the whole gang was pretty popular.  I like to joke that hubbie never would have married me if we'd met before I escaped that school and was able to stand on my own.

Anyway, you've probably guessed by now that the smell WAS coming from my desk, and was some ridiculously old sandwich I'd stashed in there to save at some point.  I'll never forget how it looked, or the outright nastiness of my classmates, or the feeling that somehow I had now confirmed everything uncool they'd ever thought of me.

Ugh.  I hadn't thought of that in a really long time.  Thanks for the uplifting post today, me!

We all probably have many, many answers to this question.  I also have a more topical, recent one, which I'm still living down.  I've grown out of my awkwardness, and people who meet me in college or beyond have a hard time believing the level of nerd-dom I once acually achieved.  These days, I have a somewhat stern, polished exterior at work, and it's hard to get me to show any kind of weakness.  It's a product of the environment in the office - no excuses.  I actually find it sort of exhilarating to always be on my toes - best game forward.  It's served me well, and I've been promoted quickly and become well respected there. 

But that attitude is not exactly compatible with being a working Mom who always feels like she's hanging by a thread and would rather be with her kids at any given moment of the day.  I've been a Mom for almost four years now, and I still really struggle with not being able to give all of myself to kicking butt at work.   I figure there's only 24 hours of me to go around, though, and any extra time work gets can't go to the kids.  I don't have a hard time making that call at all, so work gets what I have to give it, and no more.  I've definitely become smarter with how I use my work time since becoming a Mom, and hopefully it makes up for the fact that I now refuse to work the significant overtime that is considered status quo. 

Anyhoo!  That's my context setting for the embarrassing moment that bothers me far more than the great sandwich incident of 1980-something.  I was a few weeks back from maternity leave, and Lion had yet to sleep through the night.  (That's actually a nice foreshadowing to the next challenge question about whether I believe in cry-it-out sleep training, but I'll leave you in suspense for now.)  So with a solid 6+ months of sleep deprivation under my belt, my show-no-weakness attitude wasn't really holding up.  Although it was never diagnosed, I'm fairly certain I was also struggling with late-onset post partum depression. It was a real rough patch.

Things were starting to fall through the cracks, and I knew it, and I just could not bring myself to do anything about it.  Not only was I not doing an amazing job, I was totally missing deadlines without batting an eye.  I didn't care, and it was entirely unlike me, which scared me even more.  One afternoon my supervisor came to ask me about the status of a project and I guess it just became too much and I couldn't stop the water works.  It wasn't a huge dramatic moment, but I did cry, and it clearly made him incredibly awkward.  Which made me even more upset.  In one fell swoop I erased over seven years of hard work and transformed myself into a weak, crying, woman.  And I don't think I'll ever be able to erase the way I've changed in his mind.

I'm back to my old self these days, getting some sleep and back on top of my game, but I know I've lost my boss' trust.  Not just because of the tears, although it was almost funny how unable to handle them he was.  I wasn't the person he knew for several weeks, and I'm not sure I'll ever get back the full measure of his confidence.  I've thought about telling him what was going on, but if he couldn't deal with one teary incident, I can't begin to guess how he'd respond to the word Depression.  Not to mention *post partum* depression.  It almost makes me giggle to imagine it, but somehow I don't think it would be a positive move professionally.  Holy cow.

Blog Challenge - Day 5.

Day 5. Write a blog thanking someone who has made your heart come alive.

This is going to veer into cheesiness SO quickly!

Yes, I could easily write this about either of my parents, brothers, or my husband.  But the no brainer is to write it about my first-born.  I don't even think this has to be specific to my Monkey, since the universal conclusion of every Mom (and Dad, for that matter) I've talked to is that they had no idea how much it was possible to love someone until they had a child.  You can use the cliches about dying for someone all you want, but once I became a parent I really understood them.  No doubt that given a split second decision I'd instinctively throw myself in front of a train for one of my kids.  I used to make lists in my head about what keepsakes I'd save first in case of a fire (photo albums, heirlooms jewelry, whatnot), but that's irrelevant now.  All I can do now is run through scenarios of how to get the kids out.  The rest is useless.  The hardest thing I've ever come to accept was the first time I could not provide something for her that I thought she needed.  I couldn't get over how wrong it felt, how unfair it was, and how much it undermined my confidence as a parent to fail her in that way.  Thank heavens it wasn't as essential as I felt at the time, but that feeling of lacking something as a parent she needed is one I hope never to experience again, although I'm sure it will happen many, many times.  I can only pray none will actually be as significant a loss as I thought that first one was.

I know I'm biased, but I'm also confident that my Monkey is the most amazing, brilliant, beautiful child ever produced.  Best.girl.ever.  Ever.  She makes my heart swell and my chest tighten and my mouth stretch horizontally to at least twice it's normal size.  I got misty eyed just taking her to the Ice Capades, people. 

What's the quote?  To the world you may be just one person, but to one person, you are the world.  To Monkey, I'm the world right now (we've been in a Mommy phase for a really long time now).  And it's a huge, daunting responsibility to nurture the limitless potential in that child.  During the rare times I actually get a moment of stillness in church, it's the first place my head goes.  Please, please, give me the strength, wisdom, patience, grace, and so on I need to never hold these kids back from achieving everything or anything God has made possible for them.  Because while I've never been an overtly religious person, there's something about your own child that makes it clear that miracles can - they just must - happen every day.

Blog Challenge - Day 4.

Day 4. Style 31. Post a pic of you in your favorite outfit.

I said upfront I wasn't doing pictures of myself.  So there.  Plus I'm still losing baby weight, so there is no such thing as my current favorite outfit.  Getting dressed everyday is stressful and demoralizing.  I'm getting close, though, and can finally wear my old suit pants again.  That's been hugely helpful on weekdays.  Summer is coming quickly, though, and very hard to get through gracefully without my old clothes fitting well.

So instead, I'm going to post you some things I've, uh, acquired recently in anticipation of finally wearing NORMAL clothes this summer.  Yay! 

Kayce Hughes Green Tile Print Tunic

 

J. Crew Stripe Drawstring Dress



Boden Jersey Top Dress

  

J. Crew Cotton Cady Aveline dress



Boden Stripey Tunic


Cute?  Me thinky.  I'm pretty heavy on these three retailers, mostly because I can get clothes for the kids and myself in one fell swoop.  Very simplifying.  Very excited for warmer weather.  Now I just need to indulge my fantasy of spending the entire summer at the beach.  Hubbie says I'm crazy.  I say he doesn't have to come.  And a job that gives me three months of leave is a good life/career goal.

I just realized my computer is fried and I won't be able to post this weekend.  So I'm going to liberally reinterpret the 31 day blog challenge to include only weekdays.  If I manage to do some writing this weekend, I'll try to update it retroactively so I can still finish in March.

Blog Challenge - Day 3.

Day 3.  A photo that makes you happy.

There are SO many pictures that make me super, super happy, but I have to choose this one.  This is the day we brought Lion home.  Monkey had been so, so stressed toward the end of my pregnancy and some wise woman had told me that kids either had trouble right before or right after the arrival of a new sibling.  This was the moment I could see she was right, and that Monkey would be able to chill, welcome Lion, and everything would be all right. 

I had read repeatedly that when I came home from the hospital, it was important to not be carrying the baby to be able to hug older children and show them how excited you are to be back home with them, first and foremost.  So we did this, and I came in looking to scoop up my Monkey and hold her tight.  Plus I missed her desperately.  Since it was during the H1N1 outbreak she wasn't allowed to visit me in the hospital and we'd had only an illicit lobby rendezvous.  It was the longest I'd ever been away from her.  She, however, was totally uninterested in me.  First words out of her mouth? 

"Where's my baby?"

So we were cool, and to this day the sibling interactions I have to keep an eye on are those where she wants to pick him up, hold him, feed him, etc.  She does have her moments of territoriality, but we've been able to handle them pretty easily so far.  [Knocking on wood.]  The interesting challenge will come when he's more verbal and able to compete with her for conversational time.  My Monkey's a talker, and I've already noticed that Lion saves his words for when he has me alone and then lets loose.  It's truly hilarious.  Our one-on-one time is a total gabfest; he just never stops 'talking.'  So if I've got two constant talkers, things could get exciting.  Hubbie and I will never have a conversation again.

Blog Challenge - Day 2.

Day 2.  What makes you uniquely you?

This is something I struggle with.  I have a very mediating personality and like to make other people happy.  Which means I frequently walk a line between caring for myself and caring for others.  So I put who I am away.  A lot.  Too much.  I've been planning some structured recreation of ME, actually, and just this week came across a great structure for it in another blog, Mighty Girl.  Plan to try this.

Who am I?  I like to say I'm behaviorally conservative but politically liberal.  I've actually had strangers sneeringly say things like, "Well, aren't WE the young Republican."  Which I guess means I dress conservatively?  Yes - I'm preppy and mainstream looking.  I have no problem with that.  It's what's easy and comfortable for me, and seems to look right on my body.  I'd look ridiculous is something hipster, or goth, or whatever.  Just not my deal.  The political side is more complicated, because while I used to call myself a liberal, I don't think I can anymore.  I'm an independent?  Or a moderate, maybe?  A friend jokingly called me a safety-net libertarian, because while I dislike government intrusion into areas of morality and generally believe in the free market, I also will happily give up any amount of my income to protect children who need protecting.  That's the safety net part.

I'm fixated on things being evidence-based.  Sure, you need to go with your gut sometimes, but mostly I'd like research to back it up, thank you.  I love everything music and theater, although I haven't indulged those hobbies in a long time.  I can sing, but not enough to want you to listen to me do it alone.  And not in a trained way.  Same for dancing.  Monkey shows all signs of following me down this path, and that makes me indescribably happy.  She doesn't get why I tear up every time she sings along with a show tune or wants to put on a dance show for me.  But that stuff was the happy-center of my childhood, and I'm so delighted to share it with her.

I'm pretty literal, and like things to be straight forward.  I'm a HUGE over-researcher.  Buying a new stroller sends me into catatonic fits.  We'll be applying to Kindergarten for Monkey and preschool for Lion next Fall, and I already have spreadsheets.  I expect to be completely consumed by it.  There's another thing about me - education is incredibly important to me, and I am lucky enough to have grown up believing that you should weigh your options carefully and choose your schools quite actively.  So we're tightening our belts in anticipation of private schools.

Hmmm, what else?  I've always been involved with kids.  I was the 5th grader who preferred to spend recess helping the 2nd graders than playing with my peers, and I actually got invited to one of their birthday parties!  I babysat my way through college, early work years, and grad school, and in our wedding the flower girls were kids I used to sit for routinely and from birth.  My career is focused on the public policy of early childhood, and it's really easy to get me worked up discussing inequities to children in this country.  I'll avoid going there for now, but make no promises about later. 

I'm not sure any of this makes me unique.  Does it?  If not, I'm pretty okay with that.  There's a big gap between being unique and being cookie-cutter.  Or worthless.  Or worthwhile, for that matter.

Blog Challenge - Day 1.

I have an x-month old and already I'm thinking: I'm going to miss him/her at this age!  Have you felt that way, and what age do you miss most?

First post of my blog challenge.  This is a great question, particularly since I have two kids to think about.  It's particularly apropos because today is Lion's first birthday!  Happy birthday, Baby Lion!  (He celebrated by pulling an all-nighter with a combination of emerging molars and an ear infection.  Not the birthday gift I wanted for him!)

I'm definitely going to miss the baby in him.  He's just such a sweet guy, but a total handful.  (The silver lining of a sick kid, of course, is that you get to cuddle with a usually non-stop mover.  Although I would have preferred not to do that from 12-6 a.m. straight last night.)  If I have to miss one age the most, it's the just pre-mobile Lion; the one where he sits and grins at everyone and just takes it all in.  He seemed to really get how amazing the world is and be patiently waiting for it to open up to him.  He had this anticipatory glint in his eye: let's see what'll happen next, Mom!  At that age I continuously marveled at how I could have given birth to such a CHILL kid - not realizing how much mobility would show his true colors.  Although he's essentially still a low-key guy... just with an entire world to explore.  I can't wait for another age when he'll take an occasional break to hang out with Mom.

Miss Monkey is almost four, and I used to say that every age quickly became my favorite age.  It's just been so much fun watching her evolve.  Three-and-a-half, however, has not been my favorite age.  I am glad it's on it's way out, as I'm already starting to see signs of a more typical (or so I read) four-year old emerging.  Maybe I'm being too tough on the age of three-and-a-half, because it came at a time of big transition for all of us, and that could be to blame instead.  Regardless, it was the toughest age by far in terms of discipline and fighting.  I really had to examine myself as a parent and rethink some old habits.  I think we came out of it well, though.  I definitely grew - learned a lot about controlling my temper and even more about Monkey and what she needs out of a parent.  All the things you always hear about I've had to learn to execute - calm, consistent consequences.  She's a very rational kid, as long as I'm a rational Mom.  So I've had to improve myself to improve her, and I'm actually pretty proud of where we are.

A blog challenge

I've been thinking about how to keep this interesting and found a great idea on another blog I like reading.  So with thanks to Bringing Up Bumble, I'm going to try to do a post a month, on the topics below.  I really like (most) of the topics, and am looking forward to finding a really consistent voice in them.  I'm not doing the posts that require a pic of myself, though, since I man the camera at our house and consequently... those pics don't exist!  The YouTube video will be an iPhone video, and it won't be going on YouTube, since Hubbie is hard core about internet privacy and, well, he knows a lot more about it than I do, so I listen.  That's why I'm not using any of our real names here, either.

Day 1.  I have an x-month old and already I'm thinking: I'm going to miss him/her at this age!  Have you felt that way, and what age do you miss most?

Day 2.  What makes you uniquely you?

Day 3.  A photo that makes you happy.

Day 4. Style 31. Post a pic of you in your favorite outfit.
Day 5. Write a blog thanking someone who has made your heart come alive.
Day 6. Your most embarrassing moment
Day 7. Do you believe in the "cry until he sleeps" method?
Day 8. Have a beauty secret (e.g. hair tip, make up tip)? Share, please!
Day 9. What virtues do you value in yourself?
Day 10. What are some of your favorite products, and what foundation/powder do you wear?
Day 11. Post a recipe. Or if you don't cook, try a new recipe and write about how it turned out (pictures please!).
Day 12. Write about what wears you out as a woman.
Day 13. A YouTube video.
Day 14. Style 31. Post an outfit pic!
Day 15. What do you wish for?
Day 16. How old was baby when he started sleeping through the night and how did you do this?
Day 17. Write about 3 things that make you happy.
Day 18. If you could, what would you tell yourself before you had your baby?
Day 19. Write about your significant other.
Day 20. Write about your job and why you love it or hate it.
Day 21. Write about your most vivid childhood memory. Post a picture of you taken over ten years ago.
Day 22. What did you do today?
Day 23. Who's your celebrity look alike?
Day 24. What is God teaching you presently?
Day 25. Style 31. Post a pic of your favorite comfy clothes.
Day 26. What do you hope your grandchildren will say about you someday when you are gone?
Day 27. Who are your favorite bloggers?
Day 28. Write about your insecurities as a woman.
Day 29. Your day, in great detail.
Day 30. What do you think is going to happen to you after you die?
Day 31. Your favorite quote.