Sunday, August 31, 2008

melancholy


i am feeling blue.

i was cleaning tonight, and i came across our nanny's clipboard that documented all that alexandra ate, slept, and poo-ed for the past 10 months. friday was nicole's last day as alexandra's nanny. we decided to put alexandra into daycare for several reasons. one, because we truly cannot afford to keep the nanny situation. two, because i will hopefully be home next spring writing my dissertation, and, as this summer bore testament to, i cannot get work done when i know my sweet baby is around. three, alexandra loves other kids and we thought the socialization would be good for her.

we felt the financial tightness last january and put her on a waitlist for the daycare on our street. it has a great reputation and it's literally one block from our door. we found out in may that we'd have a spot for september. last week we did transition (which was really hard for both her and me) and on tuesday she starts full-time daycare.

but i'm sad. i already miss nicole. she's so happy, so determined in her life, so loving to our daughter, so easy to talk to about life, love, etc...i feel like she was truly a part of our family and our friend. there's just that small part about paying her that complicates that idea of friendship...

a few years ago, i took my students to see a play called "living out" about a Hispanic woman who was nanny-ing for a family that was a clone of us (NPR in the morning, liberal White folks, etc.) and how no matter how "close" you feel with your "hired help", that there are seas of difference that separate you. i think we were all cognizant of this, but we still found common ground. maybe i am delusional in my soft socialism, but as much as nicole was in our employ, i feel we all still liked each other and respected each other as people.

and now she's just gone. i hope we will keep in touch, and i know i will try, but i'm sad. it's like i broke up with a friend i didn't want to break up with. i want her to ring our bell on tuesday, have baby girl smile and rush for the door to let her in, and leave alexandra with a woman i happily considered her second mom. i'm scared about daycare--will they love her and praise her as unique in a room full of other kids? ugh...i'm just so weighed down by all this.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

why i teach...



As i was setting up my classroom this afternoon (which already looks great; i think i should be a professional classroom decorator--no lie.), i came across all these old photos of students and projects of theirs that i keep from year to year. I found a project from an previous student of mine, Kashmil. He created a product and an advertisement for this product. The product was cat shampoo. The advertisement slogan was, "Is your pussy dirty?" Yeah, that's Kashmill.

Kashmill recently friended me on Facebook and I felt honored. While he was by far the most crass young man I have ever encountered, he was also the most talented and crazily self-schooled individual I have ever come across in my teaching career. When I could him to stop referencing that me and my husband had been "knocking some boots" (complete with singing the song--he has a great voice) which had resulted in my pregnancy, Kashmill could school the entire class on the history of Sudan and how that history has led to the current genocide. The boy is wicked smart and sassy.

On his facebook page, he has filled out a VERY long questionnaire on himself and I have to share some of his answers b/c they cracked me up:

Religious Views: jesus is my nigga

Favorite Childhood Memory: the summer of '97 when i got my first super soaker and chased bitches down putnam ave....aw, them bed-stuy days

Speak Multiple Languages: i speak pimpish and i'm learning hoinese, i gotta to keep up with these hoes

Been Drunk Before Noon: i've been tipsy before noon, but not drunk, that's so unclassy

Describe Yourself In One Word: splendiferous

Biggest Fear: that they'll stop making skittles

Special Talents: well i have quite a few, but i can't describe them, they have to be witnessed

Where Are You Right Now: rolling with the homies

Wished You Were Someone Else: hell no, somebody better get the marcal and wipe me up, because i'm the shit!!!!!!!!!

Yes, Kashmill, you are the shit. Where else do you meet characters like Kashmill except when teaching? You can't make this stuff up friends.

Here's to my 9th year teaching...Bring it!

(PS: Photo is of Remo, another student, not Kashmill. But I thought Kash would appreciate the thong action.)

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Paradise in Massachusetts





Before my life gets sucked into the vortex of school, I have to post about our incredible time at Cape Cod last week. Our friends Susannah & Brian invited us up to Susla's mom's house in Truro, close to the tip of Cape Cod, for not quite a week of heaven. Alexandra had never made a car trip that long, and while she did scream for almost 3 hours of the drive up (1am-3:30am), when we woke the next morning to views of Cape Cod Bay...sigh. Let's just say that my eardrums recovered almost instantaneously.

I was born and bred on Southern beaches. In fact, I have a hard time getting in the water north of the Mason Dixon line--too cold! I'll lay in the beach, get hot, and wade in up to my knees before retreating to the sand and being the Southern Belle Punk. I'll wish I was at the Outer Banks and silently curse the North under my breath.

But the Cape was different. With a few days of perspective now, I have decided that it's magic. I actually swam in the ocean and the bay--the water was temperate. The light there...it's like you're in another dimension. It's warm and makes every photograph you take look perfect. The stars were outlandish; it's hard to believe that they're out there all the time, but we just can't see them in NYC. The air smelled so good; it was like rehab for my lungs. Amazing.

Our kids, Ezra & Alexandra, loved all over each other, had stroller races on the deck, played in the sand and water of the bay, a pond, the tidepools, and the ocean. They had love fests in the kitchen, quarreled a bit over the strollers, bathed in the same tub, and fed each other food during mealtimes. It was too cute. They slept like logs after days in the sun, and we ate, drank, and caught up during those night hours.

Even though we were gone for less than a week, it felt like longer. When we got back to Brooklyn, before rejoining the pulse of city life, we noted the grey/blue sky, the dirtiness, and the smogg-y air in contrast to the Cape, and then slipped effortlessly back into city life.

Thanks Susannah, Brian, Ezra (and Polly!) for such a great conclusion to the summer!

Monday, August 25, 2008

what did i accomplish this summer?


this is my last week of "summer." and it's not really a full week, it's only a few days, and all three of those days i have to come home from working on my dissertation, bring my daughter to daycare for her transition days, and then give her back to the nanny. so....it's not going to be a wildly productive last week.

as the summer closes and i reflect on what i accomplished these 9 weeks, i find myself beating myself up over not having gotten enough done on my research, my book ideas, my baby books, blah blah blah. the list could go on forever.

and then i had to stop myself and reassess. we have had a great summer. it flew by with a speed that is simply mind-blowing, and i swear that is because of the baby time warp we live in since alexandra was born. but here is what i did accomplish:

1. i typed up almost all my observations from my research last semester (almost 40)
2. i read the twilight series of YA books and a couple other memoirs
3. i am caught up on writing in my baby books (just need to add photos)
4. i have routinely posted on my blog (which i have really enjoyed)and found many great blogs to read (i heart blogging!)
5. i have packed up about 1/8 of our apt to move on sept 13th
6. we went on three great mini-vacations to ct, long island, and cape cod
7. alexandra and i have gone to the zoo, aquarium, library, pool, and every playground in the park slope vicinity many times
8. i got alexandra on a solid napping and sleeping schedule
9. i have lost the last of my baby weight through jump-starting my yoga practice(although my body is still oddly shaped!)
10. adam and i have gone on a few dates sans baby and decided we still like each other enough to stay married!

not bad, eh?
(photo from our stroll in prospect park last night. that long end of summer light!)

Thursday, August 14, 2008

lol bush



our days to mock George W are limited, but it seems like he's happy to give us fodder up until the last, grizzy moment of his 8 year rule.

click here for more hilarious photos and captions.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

tree goddess


my green-thumbed friend, erin, was featured on this girl's blog (?) for being a superwoman.

the blog's name is skirt. i love that. of all the deragatory names a woman can be called, i think "a skirt" is the best one. maybe b/c i have always liked skirts, or because my legs are my only body part i haven't wanted to subject to unnatural procedures, but i think if someone called me a "skirt" i'd feel kinda sexy.

and i call myself a feminist. sheesh.

like when my friend andrea and i went to see naomi wolf sophomore year in college, and naomi asked the women in the audience to tell everyone what they wanted to be before male white corporate oppression squashed their dreams. andrea begged me to tell the overpacked memorial hall that i had wanted, desperately, to be a maid. i'm not sure if a black and white outfit was part of my child fantasy for my future, but right about now i'm making the connection between my maid aspirations and liking being called a skirt.

but i digress.

check out my dear friend erin's five minutes of internet fame here!

what's in a name?


naming a baby is hard.

we knew that osa would be our middle name for a girl forever. we both adored it, it was adam's grandmother's name, and the fact that it means "girl bear" in spanish is too damn cute.

alexandra came to us out of nowhere at the 20 week ultrasound when we found out we were having a girl. we looked it up and it means "defender of humanity." beautiful. the two together worked--they had a nice cadence when said aloud and honestly, if you're going to defend humanity today, you've gotta be a bit of a bear.

we thought this through. or, we thought we did, but we didn't take into account the lovely brooklyn and long island accents that are pervasive in our neck of the woods.

for some reason, folks here CANNOT say alexandra. it becomes some mess that sounds like alexander, but with an "a" and a "rer" sound at the end. like "alexandraer." it bugs the crap out of me.

i heart brooklyn. i truly do. why else would i continue to be shoved into an apartment that resembles a clown car if i wasn't happy here? but this mispronciation of such a simple name is driving me looney.

it seems that the linguistic rule here is that words that end in "a" = "er"; words that end in "er" = "a". here are some examples:

jupiter = ju-pi-tah
mirror = mire-rah
lisa = lise-er
alexandra = al-lex-an-drer
idea = i-dee-er

with a last name like mine (ungemah), i honestly tried to find a name that was impossible to screw up. obviously, my efforts were futile!

Friday, August 8, 2008

vacation moochers, chapter 1




this summer we are vacation moochers.

i'm not sure how dictionary.com would define mooching, but here is what we are doing: we have generous friends who either rent or have good beach real estate, they invite us to come along, and we unabashedly squeal, "Hell to the YES!" and we're there. we show up with baby in tow, buy groceries and stuff to help out, and pray that our charm doesn't wear off.

our first vacation mooching (of only two--we're not that out of control) was a visit to sound beach, on the north shore of strong---ahem, long---island to hang with amy, james, and sammy. the house was great, the view better, and james' cooking, as always, was the best. i felt like i needed to go to fat camp after our 3 days there.

some highlights of our trip =
soft shell crabs
drinking multiple drinks while watching the sun set
stories of amy in africa
babies kissing
beach glass
jared, the 9 year old stalker
pork chops, portabellos, and peaches
the color survey

THANKS amy, james, and sammy!
smooches.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

human billy goat





i had a startling revelation today.
i have become a human billy goat.

with alexandra's onset of real people food (not that canned stuff, which, although organic, still seems like wet cat food to me), i have developed the habit of human garbage disposal.

i'm sure all of us who feed kids end up ingesting cheerios, string cheese, chicken nugget pieces, etc. that we don't want or need to eat. it's mindless. the baby wants to feed you, and holds her hand out so lovingly, how can you say, "sweetie, mama's ass is the size of your pack n play...i gotta give these empty calories a rest!"

but i have taken this eating of crap to a new level.

today, i was straightening up the apt, i kept finding veggie booty and annie's wheat bunny crackers all over. but instead of picking them up and putting them in the trash, i popped them into my mouth and ate them. the SICK thing is, i didn't even NOTICE i was doing this, until i found a piece of ancient veggie booty, tossed it back, and couldn't even chew the thing b/c it's consistency was that of rubber. i went to the sink and spit it out, disgusted at my billy goat habits.

what has become of me? i need a mommy muzzle!

Monday, August 4, 2008

girlfriends




i started the daunting task of packing last night. we are moving downstairs (more on that in another post), and we have so much stuff crammed into our little apartment that even though we won't move for another 6 weeks, it is simply necessary that we start purging and organizing now.

i began by packing up all my photo albums. they have lived in the uppermost right corner cubby of our floor-to-ceiling bookshelf for 6 1/2 years. i have scaled our library ladder many times to get to these photo albums, but last night i took them all down and packed them away in a rubbermaid plastic tub (we'll have more storage in the new apt, so lots will get tucked away).

but, of course, i had to look through each of them before putting them to rest. i found photos of car trips to VA when i was 17, wearing my cut-off jean shorts and tights that i thought were so cool. prom photos, graduations, parties throughout the years of college and life immediately thereafter--the sin party and black sunday brunch from my life in durham certainly created some hilarious photo ops. my move to nyc, my life pre-Adam, my life pre-baby...all tucked neatly away in cheap and expensive albums, documenting my life so far.

as i poked adam relentlessly telling him stories he'd heard before of this or that photo, i was amazed at the consistency of the girlfriends in my life. i have had a solid foundation of girlfriends from age 11 until present. two certain cliques: my first high school group from park view and my UNC/post-college group. all six of these women are still a part of my life. of course, new people have come and gone, but they have remained constant.

i know that these women are my family in many more ways than my family is, but seeing them stick with me through fat and skinny, blond hair and ear-muff cut, boyfriend after boyfriend, happy and depressed--all in images--make me love them even more.

i am a lucky girl.

China-like ideas...




...that I had today:

Before seeing my family next, I think I'll go to therapy for one whole hour to purge myself of all the issues that have cumulated in the past 34 years! Yes!

No! I think I'll try to lose my last 6 lbs of baby weight by not eating for a whole five minutes! That'll show those love handles who's who, dammit!

On the other hand, maybe I'll run a marathon this weekend since I did run 3 miles this morning....even though I felt like dying the whole time. No worries, it's a great idea! It's totally going to work!

Or, maybe I'll try to clean up dozens of years of rancid air pollution so that Beijing's air quality will be Olympic-worthy by turning off some factories and restricting driving for a few weeks!

Brilliant!