Someone Else is Living Your Parisian Dream

…And I mean that in the warmest, most loving way possible.

While I was busy, sitting around blinking, some developments have slinked stealthily by..

I was sneaking Max some guacamole from my finger and it got caught. On a bottom tooth. Apparently, he’s been growing that on the sly for the last few days, unbeknownst to me. He didn’t show any common signs, that I’d noticed, except for that Friday over a week ago, when he didn’t nap all day.  He lay awake simultaneously playing in his crib and muttering to himself each time I laid him down at scheduled times.  That night, I sent a fellow mom the following message: I’m exhausted.

It’s a good thing I was feeding him stuff that he shouldn’t be eating, otherwise, he’ll have grown a full set while I slept.  Or blinked blankly.

AND THEN….. 

I was on the couch with my laptop, giving Max some along time on the floor, playing with his toys. When I looked up seconds later, he was no longer on the mat, but laying on his stomach and pounding the floor, miles from the mat (ok. more like a foot off the mat) while trying to mouth a couple of hairballs at the base of the bookshelf. He isn’t crawling, but he sure is slithering by, rather quickly, under my nose.

I really need to learn to stop blinking during my waking hours.

Touching up my profile on the professional networking site, LinkedIn, I lamented the gaps in employment that I don’t regret, but that potentially employers, regretfully may. 1.5 years of traveling and job searching in the US after a previous lay-off.  A 1 year stint at A Very Big Box after, and another 1.5 year gap kept every fiber of my being occupied.  I moved to a foreign country, learning it’s ways, languages and learning to be an intelligent, well spoken adult all over again.  In addition, I’ve undertaken, what may perhaps be, the biggest responsibility in the world by the horns: being a mother/parent/caretaker of another human being.  This is enjoyable, but given the 14 hour work days with no mental, physical, coffee, cigarette or bathroom-with-the-doors-closed breaks, and with the remaining 10 hours of each day on call, 7 days a week, I was loathe to dismiss this experience and growth of the last 7 months spent multitasking, each moment of my waking hours. Mothers are always on. Always. As well, I declined a good, ‘legitimate’, ‘paying’ job offer very, very shortly after Max was born; a tough decision that I regretted having to make, yet one that I don’t regret in the least bit.  I am entitled to claim my current role, a job that I happen to love, but I also need a job where I can make real money so that I continue to senselessly spend on Max (just kidding, Slow Year ladies….). As a mother - stay at home or not - is well aware, most persons, places or employers will not allow us to easily account for this time on our professional, career oriented profiles.

For fun I looked on the drop-down list of job titles, on LinkedIn, to find one labeled closest to “Stay at Home Mother” or the like, but found nothing. However, I did notice an option to add a title that doesn’t yet exist. So I did. My profile now reads,

“February 2007 to Present. Stay at Home Mother at (company) Home dot com.”

If you’re a member of the LinkedIn network, you should add this to your profile, also. We deserved to be acknowledged as members of the working and ‘productive’ community when we choose to stay home to raise our children, beyond the too short timeframe granted for Maternity Leave. If you’re inclined, send me a note via my Contact page so that we can continue to grow our professional network, as mothers, or otherwise.

(These lists (of job titles, for example) are managed by Marketing or Program Managers whose job it is to improve the pages and upgrade the systems. When enough “Stay at Home Mom” titles are submitted to their database, they’ll consider adding it in their next system release.)

Riana has been posting about her goals for living an upcoming “Slow Year“, which consists of living consciously, and is going to be anything but slow, the way I see it. In an effort to consume less and make the most of her (natural) resources, her goal is to not spend money, instead calling on her skills to refashion, reuse, barter, buy organic and try to eat from their garden. Back to the basics. She’s going to be one busy woman, and an inspiration all around. When she’s not acting toward her goal (making, sewing, etc…) , this initiative will entail constantly revolving brain activity that will enable her to identify homegrown resources. It’s fun, and there’s so, so much to learn along the way. There’s a small group of us who are thinking of ways to live consciously, in our own way.

It’s nice to have inspiration to step it up a notch, and it got me thinking about how we can live more efficiently and healthily here at home. I feel as if I’m on path but the question I’ve been asking myself for ages is, “What more can I do?” while trying to think around the excuse of, “I do what I can, and more than some.” And less then others. But it needs to be feasible, and most importantly for it to become a fun and healthy family habit, it must be realistic for our living situation in a small apartment, with very serious space constraints and a baby on the verge of crawling.

I came away from some of these online discussions with inspirations that make sense for my family and the environment: shopping more at the numerous local marches and less at the local market. Buying organic products when I can, most especially when it’s being made into food for Max. Learning new baby food recipes. Gleaning ideas on things that I could make, but probably never will. Gathering advice on cloth diapering, because I’ve discontinued use of gDiapers (based on availability in France - would have to have them shipped internationally - and cost, in that order) although I love their near lack of environmental impact and aesthetics. It spurred me to do some aligning of bits of knowledge that I have about plastics, packaging, and basically the lifecycle of ’stuff’ from manufacturing, to distribution (including transportation), usage and disposal, and methods of processing thereafter as refuse, with healthy habits and lessons at home. I was consequently reminded that for health reasons, I need to upgrading our reusable water bottles to ones that don’t leach plastic at certain temperatures or with age, and discontinuing use of our non-recyclable, Plastic #7 Nalgenes (but what to do with them, now?) that are said to leach the chemical bisphenol-A (though the amount is said to be tolerable, I can’t risk it with Max, in situations where it can be avoided). Try to avoid packaging which, in France, is really, really difficult, but will become easier as I frequent the outdoor marches where produce is derived from local sources with more of a focus on producing seasonal fruits and vegetables. I am reminded over and again that everything in our material world is linked to the environment.

The Husband and I don’t have the inclination to spend senselessly, but I must admit that these days, I’m prone to impulse buying for Max. We don’t live in a world of exersaucers and jumpers, which I don’t believe are good for children anyway (they bounce/jump violently/enthusiastically and I don’t believe that their bones and joints can absorb the impact - this is totally not a technical review. Just my own.) but just the idea that I could be tempted to buy a swing and some other baby paraphernelia, if we had the space, was enough to talk down my potential to senselessly purchase anything and everything. As is now, all he has are books, blocks, a mat with numbers, an o-ball and some stuffed animals. Most of these were gifts, but I’ll admit to having walked into toy stores, picking up a couple of toys and put them in front of him to choose one…. Or having walked into Nordstrom Rack, and engaging a 5 minute grab and pay method of shopping in the children’s seciton, not even stopping to think of hitting the women’s. And that was when Max was asleep, so I had time. So the senseless spending…it’s not for me. Really. But it feels just as good to do it for my son.

Anyhow, I’ve also been thinking about how to live our/my values, so that conscious living becomes second nature for Max, through fun activities in which he can participate when he gets a little older. Aside from daily habits that I’d like to instill in the ways of conservation, perhpas we can make up our own clean up days at the park, like those that were organized as community events on the beaches in California. Picking and paying for our vegetables from local farms. In the bay area, I’ve taken children of friends who loved running around outdoors, swinging their little baskets and and picking their own their own potatoes straight from the ground, roots and all. Hikes…. One of my fun ideas about composting, one day when I get it right, is to show Max how worms contribute to the cycle in a positive way. I’m not a fan of worms, by the way, nor do I want my son to be the 5 year old running around the playground scaring the girls, but I think it’s important to expose him to…..everything.

I’m still trying to figure out how I can make mine a ’slow year’, but we’re a long way from me being able to refashion anything into anything new. Way back in middle school, in Home Economics elective, a girl named Sandra made my pot holder for me because I wasn’t able to sew straight. Sandra and I received an A for our efforts: I delegated to my resource and my resource took care of me. Before that though, in elementary school, I was a maniac with the needles, kind of like Betsy Ross, sewing day in and day out, seams into white paper to make little envelopes. And no, I didn’t recycle them when I’d moved onto the next little envelope. I graduated to crocheting shortly next…long, long ropes. Several years ago, I learned to knit and inadvertantly made a Ken (Barbie’s ex-boyfriend) loin cloth with a 2×2”ish square cover, ties and everything. It was supposed to be a scarf. For me. I relearned knitting several months ago, and I think I may have reforgotten how. Again. For next time though, I have some nice yarn awaiting the re-relearning process. In the meantime, there’s a new scarf in a suspended state. The domestic animal in me is beginning to rouse though, with a simple statement from my knitting monster friend, who went to make a winter hat for her own Max, doubletime. My Max is adorable in hats, especially his beanies and I thought of how fun it would be to make him hat after hat after hat. Lots and lots of hats. So…maybe I’ll knit my first project as an introduction to making something myself, and I’ll be well on my way to fashioning or making. Consciously.

Dear Max,

As I raved to a good friend recently about how much you’ve made me love mothering, she asked me whether I ever thought that I would a bad mother. I answered that I thought I would be during the last few months of pregnancy, because I didn’t feel that I was taking good care of us. I told her, though, that all of that anxiety melted away the moment I realized that you were born. And I felt complete. Every other worry dissipated into mere sparks, and it was natural to have you in my life, as if someone said, “Here’s the your next project. You have very limited resources, but run with it.” And I said simply with a shrug of the shoulders, “Ok.” You were equally relaxed, guiding me through the first few days of motherhood. Eating when you needed to eat, thankfully, so that in the midst of all the newness, I wouldn’t have to worry about that part. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. Letting me know when you didn’t want to sleep - for the first 2 months or so - and allowing me fix to that as I slept vertically, holding you every. night. And it was ok. I was tired, but I didn’t mind, surprisingly. And there you slept, in my arms. The concerns I had left, then, were that I didn’t know how to bathe you or change your diaper, and there were people there to help me take care of that. What if I couldn’t get your diaper on right and left poop trails? Do I ring for a nurse and tell her, “Il fait un poo-poo?” And is it un or une? What if I get your umbilical cord wet? And what if I drop you while giving you a bath? As luck would have it, you’ve been hurt a couple of times, and you’ve amazed me at the end of each night with a smile and flirtations with the nurses.

We started you on solids recently, and avocado seems to be your thing. Jury is still out on the peaches because we only bought you two, and I ate one. I steamed the second one and peeled it, getting it ready to puree. It looked so pretty and perfect sitting there as I got the mixing thing ready. I ate that one too, but made you more avocado to make up for it. I’m sure you’ll like peaches, they’re really good. Especially steamed.

You’ll be spending little chunks of time at a nearby halte garderie, when I muster the strength to take you one day soon. Just the idea of that makes breathing feel unnatural. I’ve haven’t yet needed a break, nor am I quite ready for one. While I know that a little bit of time there will do some good for your development and for me as well, I prefer to be right here, listening for your laughs and celebrating the millions of small steps you take everyday toward larger milestones, with millions of kisses. Everything that you find fascinating: a button on a shirt; a flaw in the covers; one of my hairs caught in your hand, instantly becomes something that interests me too, and really, when is the last time that I cared that much about anyone else, that I’d sit quietly alongside them, just waiting for a smile or a round-eyed curious look? Never.

We’ve time traveled these six months, and watching you evolve more into a little boy has made me laugh out loud on a surprising number of occasions. Like the first time you snorted while you were laughing out loud? More than once? And my laughing made you laugh more? And then theres hide-and-seek, a game so boring that it makes most adults want to cut themselves off at the knees so that they can remain seated on the couch, surfing the Internet. Anyone who’s ever written a baby book and every mother knows that every 6 month old thinks that this game is the bee’s knees. That generic piece of info, though, doesn’t make playing it under the bed covers in the middle of the day any less fun, if only to see your smile turn to giggles and into a snort or two while you’re laughing hysterically. Where at one time until just a few months ago, I was merely a host body to you, we’re having a good time, together.

I’ve been listening to you mutter to yourself in your crib since before you woke me up almost two hours ago, with a steady tap, tap, tap, and a thumping of your stuffed dog, that you tend to swing by the tail. You’re fortunately and wonderfully self-entertaining, particularly when you first wake up and haven’t seen us yet, for surprisingly long periods of time. I’m curious to know whether all that music we listen to, from Tupac, to Rufus, to Mozart, induces that tapping. Whether you’re capable of learning rhythm yet. Whether you’ll be hip-hip-hippity-hopping soon, with the Sugarhill Gang. You’ve taken to tapping everything with your whole palm in the last month when you’re particularly at ease and relaxed; the cushions, my keyboard, my leg, my arm….

You tap my back too, as you look behind us around my arm or over my shoulder when I hold or wear you. It feels like home to have you wrapped up close to me, comfortable and content, tapping away absently as you observe all that passes by, whipping your head this way and that as you pulling yourself up a bit in excitement, by digging your fingers and grasping my collarbone. I hope that you carry those feelings of being wrapped in love and protection with you always, that enable you confidently observe all with unblinking curiosity. As the world continues to flash around you quickly as it does, I hope you retain your child’s curiosity and the purpose to further examine and consider everything that touches you, even the simple and commonly overlooked things in life; they may lead you to hidden treasures. When you embark on those journeys of discovery, I’ll be walking right along side you in spirit.

Love, Mom