I’m sitting here, wondering why I like the show Greek so much. In this week’s episode there’s plenty of internicine squabbles on both the sorority and fraternity side.; that part at least is true-to-life. And, of course, there’s plenty of the unbelievable–no one ever seems to have school work to do, have a bad hair day, or suffer a hangover, to mention just a few of the less believable aspects. I think, though, it’s that the storylines have enough of the reality of sorority life–you really do agonize over why a certain fraternity won’t have parties with you, and you really do, often, stay up all night talking with your housemates–to make for some good nostalgia. Even more than that, it’s the emotional tribulations that really hit home. No, it’s not quite “everystory” that your ex-boyfriend inherits millions from his family trust and lavishes it on his new girlfriend. But, the fact that the new girlfriend is both a sister and a former friend, a rival for the affections of the boy as well as the loyalty of other sisters in the house, someone who purports to be a sister but is instead more of a frenemy, well, all that drama rings quite true.
All in all, I really quite enjoy it. 
You might have noticed that I have added a blogroll to this page. I’ve just listed a few blogs that I enjoy.
What I didn’t include was all the mom-productivity-organization-homemaking blogs that I visit now and again. Although I do get lots of helpful tips from ladies like Rocks In My Dryer, SimpleMom, and many others, the one thing that makes me hesitate is that they are all writing from the point of view of stay at home moms. Now, I’m not one to give any credence to any kind of SAH vs. WOTH mom chasm. I think 90% of our concerns are exactly the same, and I’m always happy to hear about how my SAH mom friends have come up with a new menu planning exercise or chores schedule or how much they enjoy their MOPs group.
But I wonder, where are the working mom productivity tips? Without getting into any touchy areas, we working moms have a lot of homemaking things to do and not a lot of time at home to get everything done. It seems like a lot of the suggestions I hear are for “outsourcing”–get a nanny rather than taking kids to daycare, get a housekeeper once a week, have groceries delivered, have diapers delivered, go to one of those food preparation places and make 12 meals at once to pop in the freezer, get a mother’s helper to be there during the mad evening rush, find a college student to come in the mornings to take the kids to school…all great suggestions. If you fit into the small–and increasingly microscopic–demographic called “those with disposable income.” The assumption that, because you’re a two-income family, you have disposable income is my biggest problem with all these suggestions.
In a time–and location–where paying for preschool is a struggle, I know that there are plenty of families out there for whom two incomes is absolutely necessary to stay afloat, and there’s no wiggle room in the budget for any sort of outsourcing. And the unfortunate fact is that all the money-saving tips–like packing a lunch, bargin shopping, getting and selling clothes at consignment sales, making gifts, eating meals at home–all take more time away from spending time with your kids, much less planning elaborate meal preparation schemes, re-organizing the pantry, or *cough cough* vacuuming.
So, what can we do? Where are the resources for financially and time-strapped parents who have to work, can’t outsource anything, and still want to spend time with their kids?
Waiting for suggestions…
My poor little Baby Bug, she’s just not an easy-to-bed little girl. She’s happy enough to head upstairs, and thrilled to be able to sit on Fast Turtle’s bed for story time (and they are so adorable sitting there together, drinking their milk, asking me to “read” a story, which really means tell them a story). She’s usually the one who decides when the story about Kah-Sharkie and his sister Cah (Jah)-Sharkie is done, and lets me know that she’s ready to go to her room and rock with mommy. So we rock, we hug kitty and pillow and 2 blankets (shades of Turtle’s old animal family, long since retired to the animal basket–isn’t it funny how siblings can be so the same without even trying?), and mommy sings the same song that I sung for Turtle back when he still needed to be rocked. But then, once my voice has nearly given out and I’m dying to escape downstairs to finish the dishes or get some school work done or have a cup of tea, I try to put Bug to bed. And that’s where–more often than not–the waterworks begin. Ever since she was born, this little one has been able to shed some tears at a moment’s notice. So she stands there, sobbing, “Where are you, mommy? Where are you? Rock me, rock me!” I stand in the hallway just outside her door, trying to determine if the crying is growing in intensity or lessening, if she’s still standing or if she has laid back down as a prelude to soothing herself to sleep.
Whoever thinks that cry-it-out is hard with a little baby, I can assure you, it’s much harder with a sobbing two year old who demands, “Come BACK, mommy, come back and rock me some more!” and then, “Wipe me, wipe my eyes, mommy, wipe my eyes!”
How do you think the story ends? I think that I spent another 30 minutes rocking and singing “Oh, B’darlin’!” until Bug was finally ready to lay down with kitty and pillow and “more blankets! more blankets!” And yet, there’s too much that goes wrong in life to really wish that the evening had turned out any differently.
One of the things I like best about my job is that I’m being exposed to all sorts of new ideas and ways of looking at the world. Recently I read Getting to Maybe: How the world is changed, a book written by three authors who have all been deeply involved in social change in various ways. The book tells the stories of several individuals and groups who were effective social change leaders, and looks at what they did right, what they did wrong, and how what they were able to accomplish was sometimes of confluence of action, ideas, and luck.
It’s much more than a text of inspirational stories, though, this books delves into the theories behind change and provides clear directions to go in for readers attempting to effect change of their own.
What I thought was so great about this book, and it’s a very accessible read, is that it breaks down “how do I change the world?” into “how do I change my little corner of the world?” and then helps you tackle your specific interests within your corner. The idea is that even incremental change around an area about which you are passionate will contribute to the bigger picture, and that even ordinary people can be a part of doing extraordinary things, if they only get themselves in the mindset that change can come from them.
Overall, an excellent book that is quick to get through, but the ideas will hopefully simmer in your heads and hearts for long after you’ve finished it…
All my life, I’ve thought that if there were ever a female candidate for president, I’d vote for her. And now that there is a candidate who, I think one could fairly argue, is sitting rather much closer to the presidency than most other VP candidates, I won’t be voting for her. Although that still gives me a little pang of regret–just as Hilary’s lost nomination pains me–I’m just going to have to survive. As so many others have much more eloquently argued over the past few weeks, a candidate whose fundamental beliefs are so contrary to my own, whose experience seems so woefully lacking, cannot be ameliorated simply because she is a woman. Whether or not she could–or should– handle the vice presidency is completely irrelevant. I’m happy to let her personal choices remain her own. It’s her choices about what affects the rest of us that have me, frankly, more than a little worried about what the country would look like after another four years of war, failing economy, troubled schools, and increasingly activist social conservatism. I don’t think it’s a country I’d much care to live in.
Did you know that dawn comes first as the inky black of night gives way into a deep purple, shading more and more towards blue as the minutes tick by?
Or that, even in my suburban-verging-on-urban location, there’s a silence to 5am that is unpunctuated by the occasional sirens or traffic noise of the midnight hours?
Or that the hours of 4am to 7am are only as productive as you can tear yourself away from procrastination to be?
Or that coffee without milk (no fridge, no milk) is nowhere near as satisfying?
If I didn’t remember that I knew these things, I remember now!
My parents have a picture frame they bought when they were newly married, inscribed Love means never having to say you’re sorry. I’m reminded of this when reading a recent Slate article on the selection of Palin as VP; the author quips:
Feminism, to the GOP, appears to mean never having to say you’re exhausted.
Both sentiments are, frankly, ridiculous, as anyone who has ever gone to bed angry over the un-washed dishes in the sink could tell you. Just as love means ALWAYS having to apologize, even when you’ve done nothing wrong, even when it irks every fiber in you to apologize–being a feminist should mean being able to announce without shame that you cannot do it all. Superwoman does not exist. (All we ever had was the slightly lame, and, frankly, more than a little trashy-looking, Supergirl.) SuperMOM really does not exist, if that means doing it all–house, kids, marriage, work–to the highest of standards, with no help.
So, if “Supermom” is the new line that the GOP is selling, well, I’m not buying.
The kids are very, very excited about their new safety gear. Much like teeth-brushing, something that I thought we’d have to cajole them into turns out to be a big hit. And aren’t they adorable?
Baby Bug needs some help with her kneepad here…
