another kind of six

So, Bumby is six. YEARS old. I went back today and read some of the posts from when he was a baby, and it’s sad and sweet and wonderful to have a record of his baby days. My baby is not a baby anymore. Now, he’s six, a boy.

I have always had this thought about Bumby, that I would have his baby days, and his boyhood would belong to my wife. I do not like “boy things.” I also do not like playing. I have things I do for fun, sure, but they are not playing the way a six year old plays. My wife, on the other hand, does like boy things. She likes sports (all of them), especially football. She likes throwing a ball. She will stand there and throw a ball for the dog for like 20 minutes, and instead of being bored at the end, she will say “You’re never bored if you have a ball!” I always respond, “You mean book. You’re never bored if you have a book.” And she kind of cocks her head at me because she did not mean book, she actually did mean ball. So, this is why I assumed I would have baby Bumby, and she would have boy Bumby. Because inevitably the world would socialize him, and he would stop wanting to do “spa day” and bake cookies with Mama, and he would start wanting to throw the GD ball with Mommy, and at this point he would like her better and would therefore no longer be mine.

Which, he does like boy things now. He does like to throw the ball, and today he went FISHING. For fish.

What is remarkable about this, though, is that he’s still mine! He asks me to play with him and I respond quite honestly, “You know I don’t like to play. You play, and when you’re ready to help me with some stuff, let me know and we can go look at the garden to see if there are tomatoes.” He wants to throw the ball and I send him out with the dog on his own because it is honestly so boring. And then, he comes back to me. Like a little moon, he’s always in my orbit. When I’m working, I hear him playing in the house, and at the end of the day, he circles around. He occasionally wanders in and says, “Mama, please print a coloring page, I’ll show you which one” while I am on a conference call and everyone says hi because he sticks his little blond head right into the frame. He hears my feet on the stairs when I go down for a snack, and says “MAMA!” and runs over to tell me about fishing or the swimming pool or the TV show he likes. When I cry, he comes right toward the pain and gives me a hug and a snuggle.

And as I am writing this, I realize that the reason this is so amazing for me is that this wise little being has given me such a gift by staying mine. The gift is acceptance. It is okay that I do not like to play, he still wants to be mine. It’s okay that I do not like the ball, and that I like to read possibly more than anyone I have ever met, and that I say “Shhh” all the time when someone tries to talk to me while I am reading because I really only like to do one thing at a time. It’s okay that I cry, and I usually don’t tell him why, because he is not afraid of this and can sit there and be present with me, which actually always helps.

I think this would be what is called unconditional love. I have heard of this thing, but until right this second, I did not really feel what it is, in my bones. It means someone does not stop being yours just because you have grown and changed and one likes balls while the other likes books. It means he stays in my orbit.

Now I know that one day he will stop being mine. This is the nature of being a parent, right? If I am still the Earth to his Moon when he’s 35, that is called failure to launch and means I did not do a good job, and probably he will have a whole host of psychological problems in this scenario. I understand this. But for now, he’s my moon. And the beautiful thing about this is that I also love him like this, even though he went out to murder a perfectly innocent fish today and throws the ball even when it is covered in dog saliva and then touches me. So he has given me unconditional love in that way, also, and in this way he will never stop being mine.

the kids are alright

So, global pandemic.  We’re supposed to believe that the kids are alright. Right?

OK. So maybe in the short term. But let’s just talk for a minute about the long term.

Remember universal pre-K? Which is important because kids who have pre-K are better set up for kindergarten and school and life in general. Well, my kid is missing roughly 1/3 of pre-k, as are all of his peers. But even setting aside the little one, the big ones are also missing huge chunks of their education and also, by the way, formative years.

Boo is a junior in high school.  By all reasonable measures, the last day of her junior year was March 12.  This means no AP tests.  Her ACT was just postponed until June, but she may not take it then, either. Not to mention she will have no junior prom. She won’t see her older friends graduate. And they won’t get to finish their senior year of high school. These rituals are in place for a reason. This year, they won’t be happening.

The big brother is now a freshman in high school. He is coming of age, etc. and we are  supposed to help him navigate his social landscape, while also preparing him to be a reasonably successful human being (by which I mean, of course, good global citizen).  His only social interaction, though, is via X-box.

So, help. Help! For real, how do we get our kids through this?! I was a math major, and have read the classics.  In theory I could home-school my kids through this crisis, but let’s be real. I have a full time job, which I am expected to work from home, now with no childcare. It is all we can do to get our teens to commit to getting out of bed by 10 am each day, and limit the Bumby to 3 hours of iPad a day while we juggle conference calls, and documents, and material adverse effects, while meanwhile our kids have no interaction with peers. Also, the academics are only one of my worries. We need to raise kids who don’t rely on electronics to interact with people, right?  And yet, there is a global pandemic, and some of our most beloved family members are the most at risk.

So, the kids are alright. For now. But it has literally been one week out of 6, or 8, or 12, or 24. All the while, we are one mile from the Eastern seaboard’s COVID-19 epicenter, and I have an immune-compromised mom. Holy shit, y’all. What a brave new world.

white children, race, and the Emperor Zurg

Over the last day or so, there has been a discussion in my favorite mom group about a racist action by a 4 year old against her mom’s roommate. It has me thinking a lot about the ways that I do or do not talk about race with my (white) son, and the ways we do or do not talk about race with young white children in general. Here’s the scenario:

Mom has a new roommate who is a black man. Her 4 year old daughter wanders in to talk to him, and says she wants to make him a cake. Specifically she wants to make him a black cake. Why? he asks her. Because he is black, the little girl responds, so she will make him a black cake. Roommate later texts mom about this, and says that baby racism can hurt just as much as grown-up racism. Mom apologizes to roommate, and asks the mom group for some advice about handling race issues with her 4 year old (white) daughter.

The immediate response from the vast majority of the moms in the group was that the little girl was not racist, and it was not appropriate for the roommate to characterize her as such.  He must not have much experience with kids, because she was just trying to do something nice (make him a cake) and little kids make associations like that all the time. Probably she meant a chocolate cake! And maybe that’s her favorite cake, so she was actually being nice! And because she is innocent, we should protect her from his accusation of racism (I am paraphrasing here). He shouldn’t be playing the race card with a little kid (I am not paraphrasing here).

So the conversation goes on, and a few chime in to say actually, it doesn’t matter what her intention is, she is racist because she is a white little girl raised in a world that perpetuates racist systems, etc. One woman answers the mom’s actual question, and posts links to several resources. In my opinion, whether the daughter is intentionally racist is a red herring, because the important point is that roommate has used the comment as an opportunity to ask mom to address issues of race with her child, which she was trying to do.

Later, mom updates and says that she had a group of friends over, the night before, and that she also asked the friends this question. Like the mom group, the friends debated whether or not the daughter was racist (mostly deciding that she was not), avoiding the question at hand which is how to address race with a young white child. The roommate came home, and mom’s friends surprised her by ambushing roommate and asking him why he thought the little girl was racist.  He responded that he adores the little girl, and is not attributing negative intent to her, but his whole life people make comments about his skin being like chocolate, about his hair, and it was just too early in the morning for a microaggression, even from a little kid. It’s the cumulative effect of his lived experience.

And the mom group falls relatively silent, except one mom who chimes in to say of course we, as moms, will defend the little girl’s innocence, and she thinks it was a good thing that the friends confronted the roommate because now everyone has left a little better educated, including all the moms in the mom group. /end scene

Of course, if you look at it from the white peoples’ perspective, she’s right. Good thing we all had the opportunity to get educated by this black man.  But if you look at it from his perspective, it’s hard to find what’s good about a group of (presumably white) women ambushing you when you walk in the door after a long day, and asking you to defend your account of the racism you experienced.  For white people, it’s never about race. That is the luxury of white privilege right there, it gets to not be about race.

Many of the moms, in their defense of the little girl (who by the way, needed no defending. Mom didn’t say “how can I punish the little girl for saying this,” she instead said that she thought this presented a learning opportunity for her little girl) pointed to the tendency our children have to characterize things by color.  I have on a red shirt, so I should use the red cup. Red, and red. Matching. Applied to roommate, black skin means he should have a black cake. Black, and black. Matching. No harm.

Here’s the problem: If I am wearing a red shirt, it implies that I like red. Therefore I would probably appreciate someone offering me the red cup. But having black skin does not imply roommate’s likes or dislikes, and someone needs to tell the little girl that. She needs to have a conversation with a trusted adult about how skin color does not dictate innate attributes, or likes and dislikes, or any other such thing.  Take it further, right?  I get to be Buzz Lightyear, because I’m white, and roommate is Emperor Zurg, because he’s black. Matching. Oh look, I also get to be Luke Skywalker, while he’s Darth Vader.  And I get to be Sleeping Beauty, while he’s Maleficent.  I am the heroine of the movie while he is…. oh actually there’s not a black character in this movie, so never mind.

So probably I have had all these conversations with Bumby right? Especially since he has a black babysitter, and white moms. And we live in a predominantly white neighborhood, that borders not one, but three predominantly black neighborhoods.  Well, no. Not exactly. I was telling myself that he’s too young to understand race. He doesn’t really even notice it yet! Except that in itself is a benefit of white privilege, isn’t it? Deciding that our kids are too young to experience race.

My little blond boy is not too young to talk about race.  I will start this conversation today.  So here are a few of the resources helpfully posted in the mom group today, for my further reading and yours:

Raising race conscious children

Why it’s important to talk about race at a young age 

Colorblindness 1 and 2

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism

And last, but not least, why it doesn’t really matter if her favorite cake is chocolate.

White mamas, we’ve got some work to do.

maka

It looks like Bumby has weaned. Not to sound braggy, or jinx myself or anything, but our breastfeeding relationship was pretty much exactly what I wanted for us.  Although I think this was the right time for it to be over, I am still a bit sad.  This is how it went for us:

3 seconds in:  I haven’t really even processed yet that Bumby is born, and a boy, when he is flopped onto my bare chest.  He wiggles around.  Amazingly, he can lift up his own head. I think that he looks like a small turtle, lying there on his tummy with his head bobbing around. The first thing he does is nurse, before he even looks at me.

2 weeks in:  I literally hit my wife in the face for having the nerve to be SLEEPING, when some of us are trying to BREASTFEED, with tears streaming down my face from the pain. We weren’t doing it right, but I didn’t know how to fix it.

4 weeks in:  I read the La Leche League book and find the forum.  I learn to let Bumby take the lead (i.e., I ignore the advice of the nurse in the hospital to force it) and it becomes more comfortable. I start to relax. It’s tolerable.  I think I will make it to 3 months, then quit.

6 weeks in:  I get thrush, which I have heard called  “athletes foot of the boob.” This is a pretty accurate description of what it feels like. There is no sleeping, and I have to go to some weird pharmacy on Long Island to get the specific ointment that my hippie OB has prescribed for us.  It works, and the thrush goes away, but not before I ignore, in an exhausted daze, the fact that a pipe has burst behind our house and we have a water bill over $1,000 because water has been pouring out inside of our back wall for days. Oops.

Five months in: I am still, magically, gloriously, on maternity leave. It is sunny and hot.  It is June.  We have gone to the farmer’s market, Bumby in the Ergo. We took the dog on a long nature trail walk, and go home.  I lie on the bed and nurse Bumby while simultaneously eating farmers market strawberries.  I think that having a baby is the greatest.  Being a mom is the greatest. This is just how it should be. We take a nap with the windows open and the warm breeze blowing.  He still won’t sleep unless he is on top of me, so I take full advantage of this and nap with him every single day.

A year in: He stops taking bottles.  I still pump religiously, but the amount he will drink drops and drops.  He has never wanted freezer milk, but would tolerate refrigerator milk until now. I finally taste it and realize it tastes AWFUL.  Probably I have high lipase or something, but Bumby is such a hungry guy that he just drank the bottles anyway while I was at work.  I continue to pump, even though I change jobs and have to go down to a weird little room because my office has glass walls. I dump the nasty tasting milk down the drain.  He stays nice and fat, nursing when I am home and eating food when I am not.

18 months in: We nurse only in the morning, at naptime if I am home, and at bedtime.  While I nurse him, I sing. His favorite is Baby Beluga.  He has learned to talk, and calls nursing, or breasts, or milk, or anything associated therewith “Maka.”  He says “Maka mama. That maka all done. Switch maka.  Maka maka moo moo moo.”  I tell him it’s not polite to insinuate that your mother is a cow.

Two years in:  We drop the bedtime nursing.  He doesn’t ask for a couple days, and I don’t offer. One night he says “Maka mama” at bedtime, and I say, “Sorry Bumbs. We don’t do maka at bedtime anymore. You can have maka in the morning.”  He says okay, and we sing and rock in the chair.  I am surprised that he doesn’t cry, but he doesn’t.

Two years, two months in: My grandfather is dying. I have never been away from Bumby overnight before, but I leave for Michigan without a thought. I learn that he is dying, and two hours later I am sitting on a flight.  Bumby only nurses in the morning now, but halfway through the 5 days I am in Michigan caring for my grandfather, I realize I am painfully engorged, although it has taken more than two full days to get here.  I take a hot shower and hand express. I am surprised how much milk there still is.  When I get home, I ask Bumby if Mommy took good care of him.  He frowns at me and says, “Mommy doesn’t know Baby Beluga.”  Otherwise, it seems things went just fine. I tell her she better listen to the Raffi album a bit more in case I need to travel again.

Two years, three months in: Bumby still nurses in the morning. Mommy gets him from his bed and he crawls in our bed with me, snuggles up, and says “Maka maka moo moo moo. PUH-LEEZE.”  He is working on being a “polite young man.”  If I happen to be up already when he wakes up, he is usually too distracted to nurse, but goes right back to it the next day.

Two years, four months in:  Bumby gets a double ear infection.  He naps longer during the day, fusses all night, and sleeps in, while we battle his 105 fever. We can’t let it spike, or we risk another seizure and another trip to the ER.  We set our alarm and alternate Tylenol, Motrin, Tylenol, Motrin, all day and all night.  Even though I feel like a zombie, I am always awake before him in the morning, and he doesn’t nurse those days. One day, before his nap, we sit down to sing in the rocking chair, and he says, “Maka mama. Naptime maka.”  I say okay, and it takes me longer to sing Baby Beluga than it takes him to nurse. A few days later, he is well again, and up before me.  He snuggles into bed and says, “Maka maka moo moo moo.  Please.”  He tries to nurse, then frowns at me and says, “That maka all gone. Let’s go downstairs and PLAY!”  He doesn’t ask again.

 

Productive

I have barely any time to write. In 11 minutes, I have to let the nanny go and my wife will be home, and I still have work I am desperately trying to wrap up.  Today, the nanny took Bumbs to the zoo in the morning. They looked at animals, ate a sandwich on a bench, and rode the bug-go-round. They came home and had a snack, then Bumby took a nap while the nanny folded one load of laundry. She took a break, then tidied the kitchen a bit. Then she took Bumby to the playground, and home for a bath. Right now I can hear them belting BABYYYYY BELUUUUUUUGA over the monitor as he gets his jammies on.

Her list of accomplishments for the day:  fun activities with a small thing, one load of laundry folded, multiple snacks, and about 4 dishes loaded into the dishwasher. And yet, I feel like she did a great job today.

If I had that list of accomplishments, I would think I had slacked off. Why didn’t I get some errands done while I was out, instead of going to the zoo AND the playground? Why was I taking a break during nap instead of sending out some work emails, or ordering groceries, or trimming the hedges, or putting in a couple more loads of laundry, or paying bills?

Perhaps I should re-think what it means to be productive on the days I am home with my son.

stomp stomp stomp

I had never been away from Bumby overnight before, until a few weeks ago.  My grandfather, who is (was – I keep forgetting to say was) extremely old, had fallen particularly ill and was not expected to live more than a day or so. I rushed home to Michigan without a thought. Alone.

While I was there, my grandfather rebounded a bit, and we put him on home hospice care. Three nights, one panic attack and a good deal of ordering around the senior generation of my family later, I flew home.  My wife had a work dinner the following night, so I headed up to put Bumby to bed on my own.

“I want stomp stomp stomp.”

WHAT?  “Is that a book?”

“Yes. Stomp stomp stomp!”

Hm. I wonder what the fuck we’re talking about.  “What book is stomp stomp stomp, sweetie?  Is it a big book or a small book?”

<looks at me like I’m an idiot> “It’s STOMP STOMP STOMP.  It goes STOMP STOMP STOMP.  STOMP STOMP STOMP.”

Oh god, 3 nights away and I don’t even know his favorite book anymore.  “Does it have dinosaurs in it?”

“No.”

“Animals?”

“Mmmm. Not REALLY.  It has STOMP STOMP STOMP.  And hairplane.” (Yes, this is how he pronounces it.)

Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.  It has an airplane.  “Does it have other machines? Is it the big book with all the cars and planes?”

“NO.  IT’S STOMP STOMP STOMP.”

Etc.  I finally learned that Stomp Stomp Stomp is this book:

Not because I figured it out, but because he found it on his shelf.  Apparently, when my wife reads it, she yells “STAMP STAMP STAMP” at one point when postman number 2 is stamping the letters. Even though this does not appear anywhere in the book. There are some farm animals at the back of the book  (so it’s not really about animals, but it has some in it) and an airplane transports the mail. Sheesh.  It also apparently has a mama and a mommy, even though I tried to tell Bumby that the pictures he thought were the boy’s mama and mommy were actually two other children. Oh well.

So, a child who can speak is a double edged sword. On the one hand, they can explain things to you and (theoretically, at least) follow simple instructions. On the other hand, sometimes they make no sense.  To us, anyway.

who says you can’t go home? (or: listen to your gut)

Back in March of last year, one of the partners I did about half of my work for quit my law firm and went to another firm. I was in the middle of dealing with a move and Bumby having pneumonia. I totally couldn’t deal.  When I emerged from the fog just a bit, I lawyered the problem. I did a pros and cons list for each firm.  I made a five year plan.  When I stepped back and looked at it, I came to the conclusion that I needed to move to the new firm.  There were lots of reasons, which all looked very good on my lists.

The problem, however, was that my gut was screaming “DON’T DO IT” the entire time I was analyzing it.  The partner who was remaining at my old firm was a guy I just like much better than almost anyone I have ever worked with, although he is close to retirement age.  I had friends at my old firm. I was pushing myself to view “no female partners” at the new firm as a good thing because I knew it meant they would love to make a female partner, but it still felt like such a red flag, even though everyone I met was very nice and did not seem particularly sexist (you know, any more than usual guys you work with).  I cried every day from the day I gave notice until I started at my new firm, which was right after Memorial Day.

Anyway, not that surprisingly, I have regretted my decision pretty consistently for the last 8 months.  I could go into the reasons, but the bottom line is just that I was miserable. I work for two reasons (other than the paying-the-mortgage type reasons). One is because I actually really like being a lawyer. The other is because I am a happier person when I talk to people other than my wife and kids.  The work at the new firm was boring, and I had no friends. And I had no idea how to go about getting better work, and no way to make friends, because the associates were super unfriendly. So I went through about a three month process of pining for my old job before I finally took a page out of Bumby’s book.  When he gets into stuff, he comes right up to me and says, “I made a big mess. I need help!”  Well, I had made a big mess, and I needed help, too.  It strikes me over and over again how simply he views the world, and how often that is the best approach. He doesn’t lie. He asks for what he needs. He tries to do it himself but has no shame in admitting he needs help.  When he’s hurt, he cries and reaches for someone to hug. He says “I love you” all the time.  Sometimes, things are not that complicated. My two year old pretty much has it all figured out.

So I scheduled lunch with the guy I liked so much from my old firm, and asked for my job back. He said he would need a few days to talk to other partners at the firm and see if they thought they could keep me busy and what the reception was in general. Less than 24 hours later, he called me and said they’d be delighted to have me. Less than two weeks after that, I had cleared conflicts and had an offer letter in hand. When I gave notice, my boss at my new firm said that he actually thought going back was going to be a good move for me, after hearing my complaints about the new firm.

I start on Tuesday at my new/old job. I am looking forward to female mentors, friends in the office, and work that I find interesting again. My gut is feeling much better about this job move than the last one.

what democracy looks like

This weekend, my wife and I joined in the New York march with Bumby and Boo. I don’t need to tell you that it was empowering and overwhelming and yes, at times even a little boring as we stood still for hours on the streets of midtown that were for once gridlocked with humans, instead of cars. 

At one point, Boo and her friends joined a chant of “build a fence around Mike Pence.” After it died down, I heard the man behind her say, “That was clever! Let’s give these girls credit for starting it even if they didn’t. Who doesn’t love cute little girls?” The “cute little girls” ranged in age from 13-18 and yes, were cute, but were also extremely pissed off. Which they told him. It’s like some people are trying to miss the point, right?

So it was Boo’s first march, and Bumby’s first march, and it was also my wife’s first march. She never really felt called to participate in political action before. She didn’t even vote in some past presidential elections (in fairness, she was in the hospital after giving birth 4 weeks early, but still….). It was a big day for the family.  It was the start of our resistance to what the Republican agenda and the Trump administration are trying to do to our country. 

 I don’t have much to say in this moment except solidarity, sisters. They may take us down but they will take us down fighting.   

the morning after

This morning, I got out of bed because Bumby needed me to. He needed a diaper change and he wanted to play cars.

When I was watching Hillary Clinton’s concession speech, which was moving and eloquent and a message of unity and hope, just like her campaign has been, I burst into tears (again). I could not handle that this perfectly qualified, brave, strong, powerful woman was not going to be our President, and I could not stand the fact that (almost) half of the country hated what was different more than it loved what brought us together. Bumby looked up from his cars and ran over.

“Mama,” he said, and threw his fat little arms around my neck.  “Kiss.” He gave me an open-mouth kiss with too many teeth, and squeezed me hard. “All done!” he said, wiping my tears.

Okay, Bumbs, all done for now. But for the first time in weeks, he wanted me to hold him in my arms and rock him until he fell asleep for nap. That was fine with me.

names

People have asked us what Bumby calls each of my wife and me, how he distinguishes us. We tend to refer to my wife as Mommy and me as Mama, but I always figured he would sort it out on his own. For example, Boo’s friends used to call us “Nice Hair Mom” and “Crazy Hair Mom.” I was fine with this, since I was Nice Hair Mom. 

Sure enough, Bumby has come up with his own names for us. Monday I worked from home. It was Halloween, and I didn’t want to get stuck at the office for Bumby’s first trick-or-treat. I came down for lunch, and he climbed onto my lap. He wrapped his fat little arms around my neck and buried his face in my hair. “Miss you. Miss you,” he whispered in my ear. 

“Oh Bumbs. I miss you too,” I answered. 

He looked into my eyes. “Miss you, Stinky Mama.”