Cuteness

I've been trying to record Finn's few words and his very cute animal noises for days now, but the moment the camera comes out, he clams up or gets all worked up because I won't let him operate it. Today I finally managed-- on take 73 or so-- to get a little recording. The end is the cutest part. Oh, and guess what? When I play the video, Finn responds to every question promptly and enthusiastically.


from Meredith on Vimeo.

Jam Berries

My father and step-mom passed through town yesterday on their way to a tandem bicycle rally, and we decided to spend some time berry picking at a nearby farm. I had intended to get a flat of strawberries to make jam, but when we got there we found that cherries had also come into season and, moreover, that they were the best things we had ever tasted. There was a nice breeze and easy picking, so, while Mr. Pithy and I traded with Finn chasing (and feeding), the other three adults picked. And picked. And picked. I kept asking if we didn't have enough, but everyone else would say "oh, you can't have too many." (You know where this is heading right?) I finally forced us to leave after picking 25 pounds of strawberries and cherries.

Back home, Mr. Pithy and my stepmom de-stemmed and de-pitted them while I made lunch, chased Finn, and got set up for canning. I wanted to try freezer jam for us since I vastly prefer it (less sugar and more fruit taste. But it does take up room in the freezer and doesn't store as long as conventional jam). With a food processor, it was incredibly easy to make. Then I started the conventional jam. I hadn't made it before, but I wanted to can jam, salsa, and applesauce this summer to put together little gift baskets for Christmas. Although many jam makers told me that you didn't need to use a hot water bath, all of the (modern) directions that I read said that you should. I decided that I didn't want to risk poisoning my jam recipients, so I did the hot water bath. Canning, as it usually does, ended up taking all day. By the end of the day I had put up 38 jars of jam (half freezer, half conventional). Contrary to the promises of one of Finn's favorite books, there were no strawberry ponies and strawberry lambs dancing in meadows of strawberry jam. Instead, I was hot, sweaty, and tired, and had a trashed kitchen (despite lots of help from my stepmom). And we had half of the berries still left!


We had been eating berries all day, in addition to putting strawberries in our lunch salad, and making milkshakes with them, so we ended up calling the neighbors and having people over for berries and ice cream. The house was dirty and I was a sweaty mess, but, in the end, nobody seemed to pay much attention to that when there was homebrew, berries, and cream to pass around. I also gave Finn some whipped cream, which he thought was the best thing since...well, since the cherries he had just eaten. He did smear it all in his hair, though, which gave him a very sticky mohawk.

We ended up freezing the berries that were left (yes, we still hadn't made it through them all). Strawberry season isn't over yet, but I think that I am finally all berried out. Except that raspberries will start soon....

Here are a few photos of the picking. I was running too much later to take pictures of the hard part.

Here, Finn is trying to poach from the cherry box. His one big objection to cherries was that we insisted on feeding them to him so we could get the pit out. He does NOT appreciate help.

Summer Routine

Nothing huge or of great import is going on in Bucolia these days. But that last entry is getting stale, so perhaps I should update with the mundane.

Yesterday was a pretty typical summer day. I woke up with Finn alone in our bed, at about 7:30. Mr. Pithy has been snoring like crazy, and I keep banishing him to the guest room. Otherwise, between allergies, Finn's constant nighttime wakings, and the snoring, I get no sleep. But it still feels bad to be sleeping in separate rooms. We do like each other, after all.

Anyway.

As usual, Finn woke, nursed for a bit, and then sat bolt upright and yelled "Daddy!?!!!?" Followed by "Yeah." Finn only has five solid words: Mama, Daddy, Yeah, Bye-Bye, and Moon. For whatever reason, "Daddy" is almost always paired with "Yeah" these days. "Daddy?! Yeah!" "Daddy?! Yeah!" We don't get the "yeah" part, but it sure is cute. Anyway, Finn then hopped off the bed, opened the bedroom door (yes, on his own…sigh) and ran down the hall to the guest room shouting "Daddy!!! Yeah!" all the way. He found Daddy, but quickly lost interest after realizing there was something even better to be had: glasses on the night stand.

Mr. Pithy and Finn headed downstairs to make breakfast while I showered and got ready for work. I then flew through the kitchen, inhaled a breakfast taco, and, in typical summer morning routine, started freaking out about how I never get into work on time (as set, observed, and enforced by me) and am not getting enough done. (Reason #4,567 I will not get tenure.) I whipped everyone out the door and was dropped off at 9:30. (How is it that it takes 2 hours for us to get out the door? I can do it in half an hour flat alone.) I then spent six hours at the office continuing to do data work for the child nutrition paper. Oh, wait, make that 5 hours. I had lunch with a friend rather than my usual eating in front of the computer. Even so, the work that I am doing is really mentally exhausting so, as much as I'm torturing myself about not getting enough hours in, that was probably as much as I could take anyway.

At 3:30 Mr. Pithy and Finn came back by, picked me up, and we went home. Mr. Pithy headed back out for his bartending shift. Finn and I went for a run down our dirt road. I love how in summer the leaves are on the trees and there is a canopy closing in over sections of the road before it opens up for a house or field of corn. Once upon a time I would have done three or four miles, but these days I count it as a good run if I can get in two miles without Finn starting to writhe and cry to get out of the torturous, terrible stroller. Finn actually fell asleep in the stroller on the way back. When we got back, I made dinner while taking periodic "Mommy-Baby Dance party" breaks. Finn is such a cute little dancer; he mostly just twists and flaps his arms around and giggles. Then we headed back outside. I followed as Finn walked ran to the neighbors' house, chased some guinea hens, and walked ran back. I weeded some while Finn poked a stick in a puddle. We visited the chickens. We watered plants on the screened-in porch. We generally had a lovely time just hanging out. Then Finn took a bath, we did some laundry, and I read "This Little Chick" 47 times. Finally, I sat down to watch an episode of The West Wing I'd checked out at the library and to nurse Fin to sleep. Unfortunately, Finn had other ideas and kept popping back up. So from 8:30 to 9:45 I read in bed while trying to convince Finn that it was time to join me.

So. Now it's Wednesday and pretty much more of the same. I'm at work all day (but I was late, of course) and then Mr. Pithy is at work in the evening. I'm feeling pretty over this whole bartending thing Mr. Pithy is doing. It started as one night a week and was more about him getting out for social interaction than the money (which is nice too.) Then he picked up an extra shift for the summer. I figured that was fine too—it gives me Tuesday afternoons and Thursday mornings with Finn (even if I stress during them that I should be working.) But this week he's picked up two additional shifts plus had fire training. So our lives just feel like constant trading off of the baby and we never get to spend time together as a family. Finn probably thinks that we're alter egos that can't exist in the same room or something. Which of us is Superman and which is Clark Kent I'll leave up to y'all.

Even more transracial angst

I am working hard on data cleaning for a project on child nutriti0n programs in Hai*ti. I should be using my time at the office to work, work, work. But I got distracted and read this article this morning. Then I went and listened to the original piece on This American Life. (It's at 41 minutes if you're looking.) For those of you who are not distracted by shiny objects and links, it's the story of a doll "adoption" center in FAO Schwartz. After the dolls are featured on a television show, there's a huge rush of interest. The white dolls go first. Then, much more slowly, the Asian and Hispanic dolls. Then, the black dolls wait....

I actually got all teary. Then I called Mr. Pithy and told him that I was thinking about telling our agency that we are willing to work with outside agencies so that we know we will adopt transracially rather than just being open to it if a situation arises in-state.

I tend to make decisions by listing all of the reasons why not and, then, if I still want to, going ahead. However, I fear that I've listed so many reasons why not, that Mr. P was convinced. He said that he didn't want to do the "wrong thing for the right reason" and that we need to continue to be lead by logic rather than our hearts.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. Logic Schmogic.

Of course, the reasons that we wanted to stay in-state didn't have to do with race anyway. It gives us much better knowledge about the ethics of the agency we are working with as well as easier access to the birth family if open adoption works (we already travel all over tarnation to visit our parents; I'm not keen on adding another state to the roster). Plus, our agency is pretty cheap and most other agencies are not. These are all very good reasons not to partner with outside agencies. Plus, if we say we're willing to partner with an outside agency and that we want a transracial adoption, we'll probably have a baby within a couple of months. Finn is only 15 months old and he's a handful. We were sort of counting on a long wait.

Sigh.

No more goofing off for me. Twenty minutes of down-time leaves me distracted for the morning. Time to get back to feeling incredibly depressed about my data on malnourished black children in the Caribbean....

Cross Country

Have I mentioned that my two younger sisters are currently in the midst of riding their bikes across the country? Yes, I mean across the whole thing; California to Virginia. They've so far ridden for two weeks and traveled 600 miles. They've been blogging their ride and, I have to confess, I'm obsessed with checking in on them. (I'd link to the blog but, as you know, this is my super secret identity.)

Am I stalking them because I'm worried? A little. They are 20 and 21 and sometimes make decisions that...well, that 20 year olds make. But most of my worry is not about their decisions and more about the decisions of others hurtling by in big, scary cars. Given that one sister rides her bike 60+ miles per day even at home and the other lives in New York City, I tell myself that the odds of run ins with large metal objects haven't changed. Plus, they are taking a bike friendly route. But, you know. I worry. It's just my personality.

Aside from that, I am also an eentsy bit jealous. Spending a summer biking across the country with your sister is pretty damn cool. But not something that thirty year old mothers do. Still, it would be super fun to do something similar once the kid(s) are a lot older. (With where gas prices are going, we may have to bike just to afford the family vacation anyway.)

Adoption-to Dos

Homestudy?
Check. Just got the preliminary copy and it looked good. We're listed as open to any gender or race, but wanting to stay within state with our agency.

Profile?
Check. It's ordered. It has all three of us on the cover, but lots of just me and Mr. P on the first pages inside. Yes, I'm disobedient. I think that we turned out pretty cute...on paper. I also corrected the typos that y'all pointed out-- thanks!

Wait?
Yup, that's what we do now. Probably for a couple of years. But I'm sure that I'll be able to come up with angst in the meantime and second guess everything (our agency, going out of state, the picture on the profile cover...)

Adoption horror stories?
Check. For some reason, when I tell people in real life that we've finished our homestudy and are now waiting, they feel moved to tell me horror stories about adoption. I would be more offended if it weren't for the fact that people also seem to like telling pregnant women horror stories about birth. It must just be part of the territory.

Also, for those of you who don't read my comments section, Chrissy W shared the most amazing and very much non-horror story of her open adoption in the comments for my last entry. It really helped to bolster out desire to try to make openness work. Thanks so much!

Openness

Towards the end of our home visit, our social worker, probably overwhelmed by our indecision on the race issue, suggested that she might be able to connect us with a local family that has experience with transracial adoption and with open adoption. The mother, Natalia, very nicely agreed to meet at the local coffee shop and share all sorts of personal information with a complete stranger. (Luckily, Natalia also blogs, so she is a pro at this.)

It turns out that we have more in common even than open adoption, transracial adoption, and blogging: Natalia also has two biological children born at home and practiced adoptive breastfeeding. Score for me, huh?

If I haven't mentioned this before, I am fairly introverted and tend to feel awkward in social situations with new people. (Actually, we probably all do. But I think that I get to claim that I am more awkward than usual.) But Natalia totally put me at ease. Not only that, she was a veritable fount of adoption information.

I think that, in my heart of hearts, I was hoping for her to tell me that our concerns about transracial adoption were overblown and that we should just go for it. But, she was too realistic (and in the thick of it) for that. Her challenges with raising a multiracial family in a small, homogonous, milk-white town are much as I had imagined and then some. She made is seem wonderful and rewarding, and she clearly has a beautiful family…but as she described what it is like for her children to always be different from everyone around them, to look different from each other, to always stand out…. I wondered if I had the energy for it all. If we were to adopt transracially—and if we were to do a half decent job of it—I feel that we would spend our lives seeking out the handful of people nearby who could provide some sense of belonging for our children. Oddly enough, despite my concerns about the overt racism in my small Georgia hometown, I think that that it would be easier in many ways to raise a multiracial family in the south than in rural New England, where everyone is sure that he isn't racist, but is also perplexed by black people.

So, I think that we are sticking with our decision to tell the agency that we want to adopt through them and stay in-state. While we are leaving the door open to transracial adoption, we know that the chances of it in-state are slim. But, at the same time, I feel an inexplicable sense of being drawn to transracial adoption. How can I justify this? How can I explain wanting to adopt transracially when I worry that I do not enough to offer the child? I don't know. So I will keep trying to make rational decisions and not be ruled by my heart. That, of course, is hard when it comes to children.

I also talked about open adoption with Natalia. She had some really good insights on our agency and our social worker. Basically, she says that they have little experience with truly open adoption and that I shouldn't expect a lot of support. There is an agency in our state that facilitates many open adoptions, but they mostly work with out-of-state agencies and they are much, much more expensive. (As always, I feel gauche writing about money and infertility or adoption, even though it is one of the most salient features of either for me. Adoption is expensive. And we would really like to adopt twice. After the tax credit, adopting with the more expensive agency would be twice as expensive as with ours, which I cannot help but think of as "costing" us our third baby.)

She suggested that if we really want an open adoption—and we do—that we include wording about it in our profile. That way, the birth mother is hearing it directly from us and we do not have to rely on the agency to bring it up. I like this idea a lot and have added a page to our nearly-complete profile. I've really struggled with the wording, though. I want to tell the birthmother that we're committed to openness—we are. But I also want to express flexibility; I don't want this to be a contract. We want to be flexible to the birth family's wishes, to the child's wishes in the future, and to the situation as it evolves. In addition, while we'd like visits, the degree of openness clearly depends on the particular situation and family and our dynamics.

Here's what I came up with and placed near the end of our profile. I'd love to hear any thoughts.

Page 10: Family (with lots of pictures of us with our extended families on the facing page)

Our extended families are so excited that we are embarking on this road. Mr. P has three brothers and Meredith has three sisters and a brother. So far, between them all we have four nieces and four nephews. And, of course, the grandparents cannot wait for more grandchildren! They promise an endless supply of spoilage! That we are adopting this child that will be added to the family is a non-issue. In fact, Meredith has two adopted cousins. While this has never been a secret, it has also never seemed to be very important and the family was pretty bemused when we realized a few years ago that some of the younger cousins didn't even realize that their older cousins were adopted. It just didn't come up very often. Our families have also experienced adoption from the other side. Meredith's cousin and Mr. P's brother and cousin all placed infants for adoption when they were in their teens. Our families reacted with incredible support, respect, and sympathy. We know the pain that adoption can create, but also recognize the love that it represents. Because our families already have experience with both sides of adoption, we can promise that this child will be accepted by all immediately as a member of the family in every way, but that we will also remember the incredible gift that the birth mother will offer us all with respect and appreciation.

Page 12: Open Adoption (with four pictures of Mr. P, me, and Finn on the facing page)

We also realize that by adopting we are adding more than a child to our family; we are also, in some way, adding you and your family and history. We have discussed adoption with those among our friends and family who are adopted or who have placed children for adoption. One of the themes that we hear most often from those involved in closed adoptions is a sense of longing. Mr. P's parents will always mourn that they do not know the grandchild who was placed for adoption. Other friends mourn that they do not know who they got their red hair quirky smile from. We feel that these are natural emotions and are not threatening to our family's love or integrity. It would be wonderful to be able to offer our child the security of knowing his or her birth family and to be able to offer the birth family the comfort of being able to follow the child.

For this reason, we are committed to trying to foster an open adoption. We hope to have an honest and ongoing discussion with you about your situation and about what level of openness works for all of us. And, as our child grows, we will of course ask for his or her own thoughts. In the end, though, our only certainty is that we do not want an adoption that is a closed door. Whether it is through updates that we send to our agency or emails, phone calls, or visits, we hope that we will continue to be part of each other's lives through the amazing gift of a child.

Summer

We're finally starting to get some fresh fruits and veggies. Not in our garden, mind you. Despite a huge amount of effort putting in the new raised beds, sprouting seeds indoors, and watering daily, our garden continues to look puny. But at the local co-op all sorts of goodies from more gifted (and green-house owning) farmers are starting to show up. Last night I made pizza with swiss chard and pine nuts and finally found a way to get Finn to eat a leafy green vegetable.

Lured by a "picked this morning!" sign above some strawberries from a local farm, I also picked up two pints. We have friends who will be passing through and staying the night tonight and I figured I would make strawberry milkshakes for dessert. However, the two pints of strawberries didn't last yesterday evening. I ate them all. Yes. That's right. By myself. (Well, Finn maybe ate one.) They were just so sweet and juicy and red and yum.

This afternoon I plan to pick up four pints on my way home and try very hard to make them last until dessert time.

Homestudy

Better late than never, right?

Our homestudy last Wednesday went fine. (Yes, just like you all said it would.) Our social worker yet again failed to check in the fridge or run white gloves along the baseboards to check for dust. She did spend an hour and a half chatting with us while a happy Finn played on the floor, played piano, pet Bossa, climbed all over me, and stole her bracelet. I am so happy that the update took place at our house; trying to contain him at the agency's offices would have been quite the challenge.

Oddly, I felt like we were clicking with the social worker better than the last time around; I'm almost sorry that we won't have more contact. We had a nice conversation and I felt like she was asking better questions about our wishes and preferences than last time. And how did we respond? By throwing her for a loop. If you'll recall, when we had our initial homestudy in 2004-2005, we told her during one of our first interviews that we were considering transracial adoption, but hadn't decided for sure yet and for the time being wanted to be considered only for Caucasian placements. Half an hour after we left that meeting, the social worker called with a potential placement of a black infant. We felt as though we were being emotionally manipulated. We said that we were trying to collect information and make an informed decision, and she was busy saying "But what about this beautiful baby?! How can you reject her?!" I was very upset and ended up complaining to her (with no response) and to the agency director (who apologized). Eventually, as I wrote about, I came to the conclusion that I was comfortable with transracial adoption, but Mr. Pithy hadn't reached any sort of conclusion before we became pregnant with Finn, The Whitest Baby Ever^TM.

So. During our interview our social worker asked us to be specific about our preferences. I told her that we wanted to adopt locally and were interested in having as open an adoption as possible. I also said that I figured that that race wasn't really an option considering how incredibly white our state is. She interjected that if we considered partnering with an agency in a nearby state (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania), our wait would probably be shorter and transracial adoption would be an option. I was about to respond negatively since the last I had heard from Mr. Pithy was reluctance, when he interjected that maybe that would work and started seriously discussing transracial adoption. Ummmm….what?!

Let me stop for a just a second here. Although I've written before about race and adoption, I do want to reiterate one key point. The question of transracial adoption does not boil down to whether or not one is racist. There are many reasons not to adopt transracially that have nothing to do with prejudice. Chief among them for us is this consideration: how would I feel if I had been raised by an all black family in an all-black town so that nobody in my life looked like me? That hypothetical family and hypothetical town could be loving and nurturing and the situation would still be weird. So, when I think about adopting a black child into our white family in our white community, I worry about that child always feeling different. That's not easy for a child, no matter how much love is in the house. On top of that, it is also weird that my research primarily focuses on the eco$nomics of race. Although this would not, in fact be the case, I could see the whole situation looking like I had adopted to justify or to further my career. That's weird too.

I'll stop there. As I said, I had decided that, despite my concerns, I was interested in transracial adoption, but Mr. Pithy had not. So when he suddenly announced in the middle of our homestudy visit that he was, in fact, interested, I was taken aback. It wasn't quite the time when I expected to have that conversation, you know?

We ended up telling the social worker that we needed to talk about race and that we would get back to her today with a decision. I haven't done that…. I think that we're decided …. but I am not sure. The thing is, I would really like to stick to our agency. We feel confident that they treat the pregnant mothers that come through well and that they are not manipulating or pushing them into placing their babies for adoption. Our agency—which is not exclusively an adoption agency-- has good resources for helping women in tough situations choose to parent. In fact, the majority of the women who work with the agency do not choose to place children for adoption. I have read so much about exploitative adoptive situations that I am reluctant to partner with agencies in other states that I don't know.

In addition, we are really committed to open adoption. While we know that we need to be attuned to the needs of both families and the child, we really hope that our child can have some contact with the birth family. For instance, our social worker was telling us about a situation she had a few months ago in which a teenager was pregnant and had decided to place her child for adoption. She hoped to get regular email (or blog) updates after she returned to college. Her mom—the baby's grandmother—was very supportive, but also very much mourning the loss of a grandchild. The mom and grandmother hoped to be able to visit the baby, but the agency couldn't find an adoptive family comfortable with that level of openness. Given that everyone is healthy and appropriate boundaries are maintained and so on and so forth, that would have been great for us. We're happy to have an extra grandparent or two or four for our child. But that sort of situation may be harder to work out if we've adopted from farther away with another agency.

In the end, I think that we're going to say that we're open to transracial adoption, but that we only want to work with our agency in our state. That means that transracial adoption is very unlikely. It also means that we're setting ourselves up for a long wait. As before, they present profiles to birthmothers roughly inversely to how long the adoptive parents have been on the list. However, they are also taking the birth mothers' wishes into account, so that can affect things. If a birthmother comes in tomorrow and says that she really wants a family with a stay-at-home father, we're in. But, that's not very likely. And now that we have a biological child, that makes getting picked less likely too.

But, who knows. There are so many unknowns here that it's really hard to plan. And, yeah, my obsessive compulsive soul is feeling edgy about all of this uncertainty.

Now "all" I have to do is finish our profile. Our social worker feels that we should not include Finn in the picture on the front; it may turn off potential birthmothers before they even open the book. (We would include him in pictures inside.) It's hard to think of Finn as a turn off.

Who said you have to wear funny pants to play golf?

Or, for that matter, any pants at all....



I thought that I'd share the photos I snapped of Finn for his (golf-loving) Grandpa's Father's Day card.

On nursing a toddler

So, I had heard from others about how at some point you start to get looks and comments for breastfeeding a toddler. But, honestly, prior to this weekend it just had not occurred to me that we were reaching that stage.

I suppose that, at 15 months, Finn is a toddler. (Actually, he's more like a whirling dervish; there's not much toddling involved.) But it's not like I just picked up a toddler and started nursing him. We began nursing when he was this little, bitty, helpless babe suckling in my arms; it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. The transition to toddlerhood is so gradual that I never really thought about nursing a toddler. I just think about nursing Finn. That's what we do.

Aside from it just feeling "right," I don't feel like I need to go into my long list of reasons for continuing to nurse. Breastmilk is good for babies. Breastmilk is good for toddlers for many of the same reasons. It offers great nutrition, immune system benefits, and comfort. It's readily available, free, and easy. It's perfectly normal for toddlers to nurse. Blah, blah, blah. Plus, if Finn continues to nurse, there's some chance I'll be able to easily nurse our second, adopted, baby as well, which I would be thrilled about.

Finn shows no signs whatsoever of being done nursing, and I am happy to continue, so I figure that we'll be doing this for some time to come. No big deal. Except…to others.

We are, I think, fairly discreet when nursing in public. First, Finn doesn't nurse as often as when he was a baby, so we often don't need to nurse in public at all. When we do, I don't think that many people notice. (I certainly don't want anyone to notice my flabby mom belly or stretch-marked breasts.) In fact, the first two comments I got over the weekend weren't when I was nursing at the time, but when family members heard that we "still" were. Two independent "If they're old enough to ask, they're too old to nurse…." comments down. (Interestingly, I was rented Season 1 of Sex and the City the other night and Miranda made the same comment at a baby shower as though it were the most witty, original thought ever.) In any event, Finn doesn't have a word for nursing or for milk, so he doesn't really ask. Unless you count bodice ripping.

Then my aunt got started. My mom was making idle chit chat when we weren't around and mentioned that I'd struggled to figure out what to wear to the wedding. I'd wanted to wear a dress that I really like, but it's not possible to nurse Finn in it, so I picked a skirt and knit top instead. My aunt responded with "Well, if nursing is interfering with her life, I think it's time to stop." I have to laugh at that one. Babies interfere with life. I actually think that nursing is easier than the alternatives. And I wouldn't call not being able to wear a dress a big "interference." Anyway, that would have been the end of it, except my aunt then approached me and Mr. Pithy separately to tell me that "It's really okay to wean. You'll still have a loving relationship with Finn." and to tell Mr. Pithy something along the same lines about it being time for Finn to grow up.

I'm not continuing to nurse as some big lifestyle choice. I'm just continuing to nurse because it seems the natural thing to do. But, now I suppose I have to recognize that we're reaching the stage where some will find us very weird, indeed.

Out of curiosity, I posted a poll to the right about nursing. I'd love to hear what y'all think. If the poll is too concrete, comment away. And, yes, I promise to write about the homestudy. It's next on the blogging agenda.

Never the twain shall meet

I continue to maintain the increasingly difficult delusion that my real and internet lives are separate. Despite having provided plenty of clues that an intrepid (or stalking-prone) reader could use to find the real me, despite the incident where I sent a link to this blog to a student, despite Mr. P's propensity for accidentally mentioning my blog at the dinner table with family, despite the fact that you could find me if you googled the right combination of real-life terms…despite all of this, I pretend that my two worlds are separate.

What does all of this denial get me? A little extra freedom and a little extra flexibility. I can write about infertility treatments and adoption and reasons that I won't be getting tenure without worrying that the Dean is reading. I can reveal my many foibles without fear that they will be used against me. I can pretend to be honest with myself even though such a thing is probably not really possible.

This whole "never the twain shall meet" mentality about my dual lives is getting progressively more difficult to maintain, though. I had the most bizarre, weird, odd, strange, surreal, only-in-fiction, statistically improbable thing happen over the weekend. Y'all really aren't going to believe this, but, a guest at the wedding recognized me from this blog.

This was obviously startling for both of us. Imagine going to a wedding in your own distant home state and realizing that you were talking to someone you knew from the internet. What are the odds? (By my rough calculation, about 1 in 7,000 if my readers and the wedding guests were representative of the U.S. population which, clearly, they are not.)

I'll give a few details while trying not to identify my new internet/real world friend. After all, she is not the one who chooses to expose herself on the internet. My cousin had invited friends of his from grad school. We chatted with one family who had the sweetest little baby boy who, of course, I had to coo over and debate trying to steal. (My inner infertile crazy lady has still not quite vacated the premises.) Two days later, when I had returned to Bucolia, I received an email from the wife telling me that she had recognized me from some combination of the photos I have posted and my own unique brand of neurotic awkwardness. She didn't tell me this when we were talking because my family was standing around and she wasn't sure if they knew about this blog. (They don't, so I'm eternally grateful that she didn't "out" me.) But I do wish that we had run into each other in a quiet moment when she might have told me.

This raises all new questions for me about social norms. Unfortunately, I have scarcely figured out social norms for either of my worlds; I really don't know what to do when they collide. I have somehow managed to feel rude and guilty for not recognizing a friend. I feel as though I snubbed her because we only introduced ourselves and chatted briefly. I feel awkward because she knows all about me and I made small stalk as though we were meeting for the first time. She, by the way, said in her email that she worried it was intrusive to even tell me. I don't see it that way at all, especially when I'm writing in a venue that begs for "intrusion."

Finally, I feel gypped. I so wanted to hold her cute little baby, but I didn't ask because we had just met and I try not to be the crazy baby-grabbing lady. But know I find out that she knew me well, so I should have snuggled that baby! Plus, we've emailed a little bit and she is nice and we have quite a bit in common that makes me wish we had talked more.

So….if you run into me at Disney World one day, stop to say "hi." We're friends, no matter how one-sided the relationship may be. Plus, I'll want to share the marvel of the "improbable" meeting of my worlds. I mean, how weird is this?!

Madison

I have SO much to post that I can't even figure out where to begin. I briefly put up an entry this morning and then decided that it needed to be broken into parts and took it back down. I think that I'll post a couple of my entries today and a couple tomorrow. Let's start with the most mundane of them with the rest of the story about our weekend away. As I said before, we were in Madison for my cousin’s (or, as we call each other, cuzzin’) wedding. I really love weddings; in the eight years since my own, I have found each wedding we attended to be a little reaffirmation of our own love and of our own commitment to each other. I like to sit, holding Mr. Pithy’s hand, and sniffle a little and feel romantic. As with life, though, weddings after a baby become much less about couples’ romance and much more about tag-team toddler taming. (How’s that for alliteration?)

The ceremony—get this—was held in the Wisconsin capitol building in the assembly chamber. The guests sat in the representatives’ chairs, complete with microphones and voting buttons. I was really looking forward to the wedding being an interactive event where we could make supporting or oppositional statements and vote, but the happy couple apparently thought otherwise since our buttons didn’t light up when pressed. Finn, though, really loved the dome, fancy lights, marble columns, and flight after flight of stairs in the capitol. He spent most of time outside in the hall squealing and running with a pursuing parent trying to hush him and find a location that didn’t echo around the entire building.

After the ceremony we headed back to the hotel where Finn took a nap before the reception. He then came upstairs to the ballroom, pointed to each and every light and chandelier in the place, and ate some crackers. Then, as I already wrote, he had a thoroughly delightful evening of running, running, running around the reception, dancing, kissing, and being kissed on by various relatives and little girls.

We also visited the (free!) zoo while in Madison. Although the habitats seemed small to my inexpert eye and made me feel sad for the cooped up animals, Finn really did like getting to—yes, you guessed it—run around—in a habitat that was plenty big for him. They had a great selection of animals and activities. We watched the lion for a while and enjoyed hearing it roar. We watched the seals and enjoyed seeing them slap their tails on the water. We watched the orangutans. We watched the giraffes try mightily to reach the remaining leaves on the trees outside of their enclosure. Finn played on their very nice playground and we also paid $1 each to ride the carousel. Finn was not so impressed by the rising and falling animals, but he thought the ceiling fan there was really cool. I tried to ignore the fact that we could have looked at ceiling fans for free.

We also meet up with a few friends in Madison and spent a little bit (but not enough) time walking around the town. It really reminded me of living in Austin in the sense that both cities are capital cities that are otherwise dominated by large state universities and have that hip student vibe. Although I mostly love our rural New England lives, Madison, unlike New York, did manage to make me miss living in the city and having more to do than count chickens.

I posted a few pictures into the slideshow above. I decided to try to exclude the ones with other people since they didn't ask to be plastered all over the internet...but I couldn't resist the one of Finn dancing with the flower girl and you can't really see her face, so I decided that it was okay. We also asked my brother to take a few pictures on Sunday of the three of us that we might use for the portfolio. However, Mr. P stayed late at the reception on Saturday night drinking and taking lots of pictures and neglected to tell me that he ran the batteries waaaay down on the camera. My brother could only get a few shots, and I don't think that they are right for the cover of the portfolio. Finn was absolutely incensed that we expected him to sit in our laps in a place where he might run and, as you can see, did some squirming. In addition, several are a little blurry, there isn't one where all three of us look good, and the background seems a little institutional and distracting. Have I mentioned that I'm picky?

Homestudy II

We are back from Madison. I am, as usual, frantic about one thing or another. Today that thing is catching up at work and worrying about our homestudy.

The day before we left for Madison, our old social worker called and cheerily requested that we schedule her home visit for the following week. I was pretty confused since only two days before our agency had told me that she was no longer with them, that they hadn't looked at our months old application, and that they weren't sure who would be updating our homestudy. Apparently our old social worker will be doing contract work for them after all and, since we already have a relationship, will be working with us. That would be more reassuring if we had loved her to begin with. I like her, but am still wary after what I felt were her attempts to convince us to take on situations that we were not comfortable with. I'm also a little concerned about the lack of information and organization that seems to characterize our interactions with the agency.

Anyway.

She is doing our home visit tomorrow at 1:30. Last time I spent a solid week making sure that every inch of the house was spotless. This included cleaning out the fridge and using a toothpick, paper towel, and 409 to clean the grease from every crevice on the stove. Obviously I am under the impression that families are denied children because there was grease in the vent on the stove door. The thing is, I can clean grease. I can't make myself somebody different and that, after all, is what really makes homestudies uncomfortable. What if I'm not good enough?

I am.

But what if….

Anyway. She's coming tomorrow. This time I have no time to get out the toothpicks. I'm hoping to vacuum, pick up, hide the leash, and, if I'm really lucky, get Mr. Pithy to shower and shave. I'm hoping that Finn isn't napping when she arrives since I don't really want to discuss the whole he-sleeps-in-the-bed thing. I'm hoping that I don't twitch and drool and that the visit goes smoothly. Really, I know that it will. We've been through this once and it was fine. Mostly I'm calm this time. I want this. But, I want it in a sane sort of way, not with a desperation so fierce that it overwhelms who I am.

But I do wish I had time to plant some flowers for the porch, mop the kitchen, replace the windows, refinish the floors, paint the living room, bake fresh cookies, and starch my apron.

The monkey on Finn's back

Hi y'all,

I'm writing from the "business center" (computer on a desk in the lobby) of a hotel in Madison, Wisconsin. We're here for my cousin's wedding, which was yesterday and which was lovely. My mom insisted on parading Finn around and introducing him to everyone as "my grandson, the cutest baby ever born." It's a good thing that people are forgiving of grandparent bias.

Anyway, I plan to post more about our trip soon, but, for now, I wanted to follow up on the leash poll. Everyone is still sleeping in this Sunday morning and I had a chance to check in y'all real quick and I was amazed by all of the responses. I have personally never had much of an opinion on child "leashes." (I have a feeling that I am supposed to call them something that sounds nicer, but I've always thought of them as "leashes" and can't seem to change now.) But, as with many things, actually having a child means that I've got all sorts of new opinions to develop or change.

Finn is a runner. He squirms and cries to be let down from arms and out of strollers and he nearly always falls to the ground crying when you try to hold his hand. We're working on that (as much as one can with a 15 month old), but, in the meantime, we spend a ton of time chasing him around. I was thinking and worrying in advance about this trip, complete with crowded airports, a "big" city, and all sorts of social events with swarms of people. My sister-in-law, Maryam, had had the leash that I linked to last time and I decided to get Finn his very own "monkey on his back." My mom and Maryam warned me, though, that some people had strong negative reactions to this, so I was curious about what everyone thought. To be honest, I thought that more of you would be negative. For those of you who are, I really appreciate the comments you made because it did help me to understand why you would find a leash offensive. I sort of do too, now, but I'm afraid that my practical side wins out. I prefer a leash to a lost or hurt baby. And Finn really is not old enough to "get" not running off, nor am I sure that he's going to get it any time soon given his...spirited...temperament.

My mom brought me the leash since there wasn't any place in Bucolia to pick one up. It's very cute-- just a stuffed little monkey that "hugs" Finn's back and the parent holds the tail. Unfortunately, it didn't really work well for us. Finn just ran and ran and ran and, if I wasn't running and running and running after him, he would be jerked back when he got to the end of the leash. I think that maybe he's just a little too young and not coordinated enough to be able to manage the tug when he's run to the end of it. So, for now, I think that he's a free baby again. I, meanwhile, am a tired mama. Yesterday he spent the entire wedding ceremony running outside. (He wouldn't stay still or quiet for the ceremony, so Mr. Pithy and I traded off while watching him while the other snuck in for snippets of solo romance). During the reception he visited every.single.table and every.single.child in the place and also tried to pull out all of the coffee pots, plate covers, and bottles of wine that were stored on shelves in the corner. He made approximately 1,000 laps around the dance floor, which I'm pretty sure equals a mile. He also kissed the flower girl and danced with several older ladies. And, when the time looked right, he would periodically try to escape the room under somebody's legs and through a closing door. For the time being, though, the parental monkeys on his back have thwarted his every escape attempt.

Poll

I've posted a poll to the right about "leashes" for children. Or child harnesses. Or whatever you call them. What do you think?

New Toy

I'm struggling to figure out how to write this entry. On the one hand, there is my maternal desire to record all of Finn's milestones. On the other, there is my concern that I not over-expose him on the internet. So, I'll be indirect.

Finn has a new toy. It is organic. It is free. It never gets lost. And he loves it.

The only problem is that he cannot properly examine his new toy because he can't quite see it around his big, round, baby belly. So he contorts himself into all of these completely ridiculous positions trying to get a better look at just what it is that is so fun down there.

A Very Yankee Memorial Day

Monday I declared that I would take the morning—and only the morning—off for our town's Memorial Day parade. Then I'd have to head in for the afternoon to get some work done. We dressed Finn up, sun screened his arms, managed to wrangle his big hat on and secure it from his tugging hands, and headed into town. Main Street was lined with people and kids. After living in New Orleans for so many years, I'm a bit of a parade snob, but I was pleasantly surprised by how fun it was, even without flying plastic accessories, topless women, or boxed wine. There's something about having a kid in tow that makes the whole world seem brighter, sweeter, and more interesting and that makes a small town parade seem as thrilling-- more thrilling, actually-- than Mardi Gras. Finn sat on Mr. Pithy's shoulders and peered at the politicians trooping by: the governor, two gubernatorial candidates, and Bernie Sanders, who was just ambling down the road without an entourage or a sign but who was, nevertheless, recognized and enthusiastically greeted by all. We saw marching bands, boy scouts, girl scouts, fire trucks from no fewer than four county departments, veterans, and—get this—not one, but two bagpipe Scottish marching bands. Who would think that a town of 8,000 could come up with all that? I do have to say, though, that I was completely taken aback by the Civil War re-enactors who marched; they were wearing blue. I had never seen people cheer for blue Civil Warn uniforms before. I actually had the immediate reaction of thinking "They're in the wrong color!" Even though, of course, it was the right color in more ways than one. But I digress.

Afterwards, feeling quite patriotic despite the best efforts of the union army, I declared that I wasn't going to work after all. Instead we invited the neighbors over for an impromptu potluck cookout. As we were straightening up in preparation, Mr. Pithy glanced out the back window and calmly announced "there's a moose in our back yard." We ran to get the spotting scope and, sure enough, there was a female moose behind the marsh (which is several hundred feet away—we have a big back yard) going to town on the trees. She would reach up to the base of a branch, clamp down, and sweep her mouth down, stripping the entire branch of leaves in one fell swoop. Mr. Pithy and Finn had to run out to grab extra buns, and while they were gone she ventured into the marsh itself, where she spent a solid forty five minutes wallowing around and munching on muddy swamp grass. She was close enough for a picture at that point, but Mr. Pithy had the camera and I didn't get one.

After all this was over, we were walking down the dirt road back to the neighbor's house. (We are not usually so polite, but Finn is a little ball of energy and we have to run him around.) The three sets of twin lambs apparently share this characteristic; they were all dashing madly around the pasture by our house in little lamb pack while the single white kid tried desperately to join in and the mothers calmly munched grass. Then we saw that one of the three remaining pregnant goats had literally just given birth to twin kids. They are VERY cute. They, like all of the lambs except my namesake, are also very destined to be dinner. Mr. Pithy asked if I wanted to buy any of them so that we could "save" them. I'm thinking seriously about it. I mean, we already have chickens. What are a few more farm animals? (Chickens, to quote our local newspaper columnist, are a "gateway animal.") But I've decided that it's too much work right now and, anyway, if we're going to get sheep or goats I want to be able to milk the goats and shear the sheep and apparently the breeds our neighbors have are only good for eating. Bossa sure would like some animals to herd, though. Herding chickens is not very rewarding for him….

Adoption

I just got off the phone with the administrative assistant at our adoption agency. We sent in our homestudy renewal application two months ago and haven't heard a thing since. We did call a couple of times to ask if they had everything and what the next step was going to be, but both times were told that our social worker (the only one at the agency who does home studies) was on "leave." Last week I got a letter stating that we had forgotten to include the check for our fingerprint clearances (which we sent THREE months ago, prior to the full application). I sent it off and asked for an update on our status. Today I learned that our social worker had resigned for good.

The administrative assistant then looks at my (months old) application and says "wait, this is just an update? And you didn't end up adopting with us before? Well, I think that this should be very quick. You may not even need a visit from a social worker at all. I'll check with the director."

I'm starting to get the impression that they are not paying very much attention to us.

Sigh.

Anyway, we'll see what the director says. And I so need to finish our profile update. We were planning to have my sister's amazing photographer friend take a family portrait in NYC last week for the cover of our book, but then Mr. Pithy and Finn came down with pink eye and I was pretty sure that a potential birthmother was not going to see their blood shot eyes and excitedly gasp "That's the family! The devil-looking one!" So I canceled the photos. But now we're back in Bucolia and we really don't know anyone who we're comfortable asking to take a snapshot of us. (I know, that's sad.) And we really don't have the money to pay a professional photographer right now. If only chickens had opposable thumbs...

Anyway. Adoption. Get ready for me to talk about it a lot more. It's been on the back burner, but I think that it's starting to boil.

Mothering the world

The coverage of the aftermath of the earthquake in China continues to haunt me. Cecily wrote something that summed my feeling up perfectly. She said that prior to having her daughter, she assumed that the whole "having a child means wearing your heart outside your body" saying meant that she would spend time feeling worried for her own child. What she didn't realize was that having a child also meant that you would begin to feel this incredible sense of empathy for other children and for other parents.


Well, I'll just say ditto. The coverage kills me. I seriously cry every time I hear news reports about the thousands of orphans and thousands of parents who have lost children in China. The pain that I feel, the empathy, transcends miles and cultural barriers. I heard a news story about a Chinese policewoman who was nursing infant victims of the quake whose mothers were dead or unable to nurse them and I swear to you, my breasts ached.





(I also have to say that I was thrilled to see that the American press also hailed her as a hero rather than bashfully tip-toeing around the fact that she was saving children with her breasts. I only wish that they had shown her doing the job like you see here rather than having her hold some babies to her clothed chest like CNN as though that was how it worked.)

Even worse, though, is the coverage that we are not getting from Myanmar. The relative lack of coverage is not because the tragedy is any less or because we care less, but because reporters simply cannot get in. The cyclone probably killed over 100,000 people and left over 1 million people in imminent danger of dying from exposure and lack of food, clean water, and medical attention. Yet, because we cannot see them, we seem more able to forget. Save the Children estimates that over 30,000 children in the delta are suffering from acute malnutrition and will die within a few weeks if not rescued. I heard an interview in which a spokesman discussed the dangers of giving out formula in emergency situations where clean water was not available and how desperate they were to find healthy nursing mothers.

I hug Finn tight and I ache for the pain that I cannot see. I also think back to when the Asian tsunami hit in 2005. I mourned then too, but not like now. Now that I watch my own baby thrive, I cannot imagine what it would be to watch children starve and to be helpless.

Except...that is exactly what we would be doing if we could only see the children in Burma on the nightly news. The global community of parents is (not) watching these children starve and we seem to be unable to come up with the collective will and wisdom to do something about it.

Digging out

I have graded 57 15-page research papers and 57 10-page Statistics finals. Grades are in. (I even figured out how to mail merge my gradebook to Outlook so that, rather than having to wait for the college to release them in July, each student gets a personal email with his or her class grade and its breakdown. I am quite impressed with myself.) And now…it is summer!!!!

What does that mean? Well, contrary to my family and non-academic friends' expectations, it does not mean that I am "off." But it does mean that I don't have to teach again until mid-September, which is an eternity away at this point. I need to dig out of the pile of neglected crap that has taken over my desk. I also need to sit down and plot out my research and paper-writing goals. But, frankly, I don't feel like it. After all, I just passed a long and agonizing review process, just graded a bazillion papers, and just finished a big presentation.

So, I'm here instead. I figure that I will wrap up some loose journaling ends and answer a few questions from y'all:

• A senior crush board is this big sheet of paper where the seniors write down their "crushes." I haven't actually seen it (it's not where faculty usually hang out), but I heard from several students about Finn's appearance on it.

• Yes, my sister is strange. And since she grew up without TV, she's never seen The Kids in the Hall. (Actually, I haven't either.) So her chicken impersonation is all her. I tagged that picture on Facebook and she has retaliated by digging up and posting a really ugly picture of me, but since this is my journal, I don't have to share. Anyway, my sister is days away from leaving to join another sister for a summer long bike ride across the country. I'm both worried about them and a little bit jealous of their youthful adventure. Plus, I'm sad that she won't be coming up here anytime soon. We've really grown close over the past few years. (For those who are confused, I have a full brother, two step-sisters, and a half-sister. I never lived with the sisters, but feel close to them anyway. Two live in Oregon and the third, B, lives in Brooklyn.)

• Thank you so, so, so very much for all of your kind words following my The Business of Being Bossy entry. I try very hard not to do the whole "Nobody likes me…now everybody reassure me and tell me how much you like me" journal entry thing. Really, I do. And that was not what I intended. But I have to confess that hearing from y'all that many of you are still out there despite my more mundane subject matter of late was really wonderful. It also made me realize that I was being too sensitive. I DO appreciate hearing about different opinions, and often hearing different opinions does lead me to adjust my own. The handful of comments and emails that I had received following The Business of Being Born entry may not have been ardent agreement with me, but they were not mean either and I should not have reacted so strongly to a little disagreement. So, thank you to everyone-- I am the better for your friendship and for your comments.

• But...ummmm....Tree Town Gal...does your entry about knowing people who know me mean that people who know me in real life know about this blog? Also, are you impressed that I just used the word "know" four times in one sentence?
  

• By the way, I think that use of bullets signals a lazy writer.
  

Finally, I'll leave you with a slideshow of pictures of Finn from Sunday. You'll see that he has a brand new giant 5x7 sandbox. (Once I thought that I would not spoil my children, but that was prior to seeing how cute he is.) When we were in Central Park last week, there was a sandbox that was full of little kids and Finn just loved it. We had put in five new raised beds for the garden and Mr. Pithy decided to fill one with sand instead of dirt and plants. It's working wonderfully—Finn runs over and climbs in while we work on planting and, soon enough, weeding. Our neighbors' kid loves it too; he comes over and builds these elaborate landscapes with hills and valleys and tunnels and castles and moats and then actually encourages Finn to knock them down. Talk about a symbiotic relationship.

Also, I know that my sister-in-law, Maryam, is going to tell me that Finn's hat is ugly. I could not find a more fashionable bucket hat that fit his rather large head, so we're stuck with functional.

Chicken Hawk

Also, although that it can be painful for my readers who are still enduring infertility to witness the ease with which others do it, I give you my sister laying an egg.


I added a few more to the top slide show in the side bar.

Observed on the college's senior "crush board"

Finn, Professor Pithy's son

The Business of Being Bossy

Sigh.

I feel like more often the not when I post something that involves an opinion about parenting, I get entries and emails from annoyed or offended readers. I suppose that this is only natural, but I got so used to being the infertile blogger who everyone felt sorry for that the change to being the mommy blogger who some people are annoyed by is hard to adjust to..

First, here is the complete and exhaustive list of women who I think should have homebirths or natural childbirth at hospitals: women who WANT to. That's it. My issue is not the choices that women make, but the fact that we are given little information and little choice in the standard medical model of birth. In fact, as I bemoaned many a time, my ideal option was not a homebirth (although mine was great), but a birth in a birthing center that was adjacent to a hospital in case of emergency. But there is not a birthing center in my state. Nor, for that matter, was there even a CNM with privileges at the hospital in town. (That has since changed.)

As for this being an elitist issue that only rich women can afford to worry about, midwives provide basic well woman, prenatal, and postnatal care at a fraction of the cost of an OB/Gyn. I, too, am worried about skyrocketing costs of medical care. This is an option that could help to make it cheaper and more available.


I know that my readership has gone way down since I had Finn. I don't know if this is because my opinions have driven people away or if it is just the natural course of being a long-term blogger who finally (and very thankfully) is past infertility. (If you are reading this, you of course have not gone away and