So I’m sitting at my desk with the kid crawling happily on the floor behind me. Our living room is reasonably well babyproofed so I’m pretty comfortable to let him play when I’m right there, even if I don’t have my eye on him every second.

I hear him cough and I turn around to see – blue drool! Cascading down his chin! I’ve been a pretty mellow mama up until this point, but – blue drool! Did he eat a pen?

I run over and grab him, sweeping my finger in his mouth and scanning the area for anything blue. There’s nothing. I mean, nothing. “What did you eat?” I ask, and he just coughs some more. He doesn’t seem too concerned and it occurs to me that maybe, whatever it is, he hasn’t swallowed it yet.

I carry him into the bathroom and scoop water into his mouth, washing the blue off his chin. It comes off easily. I still can’t feel anything in his mouth, but there’s a smell, and it’s…familiar. “Okay, be still for a second,” I tell myself. “Where do I know that smell?”

All of a sudden it comes to me: chocolate.

The kid ate an M&M.

.

…

Crisis…averted? I mean, I’m obviously not feeding him M&Ms on purpose (and were’s delaying giving him chocolate until his first birthday, or at least we were) but at least it’s food, as opposed to, you know, ink. Or something else that makes babies drool blue. Good thing I was too panicked to call poison control!

(He’s sitting in his play yard right now, grinning and going “mmmmm.” Little monster.)

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One thing I am majorly covetous of is the iPod+ Nike thinger. You know, with the sensor that goes into the shoe and connects with the iPod and downloads your workout data and gives you shiny, pretty charts?

Isn’t that pretty? And shiny? Doesn’t it make you think “Gee, I want to run so that I can have charts”? Because there are those of us, and I’m not mentioning any names (because it’s me) who don’t, as a rule, run. We do not like to run. We like to stroll. But strolling does not generate charts, and it certainly doesn’t involve clever sensors.

Unfortunately, the whole iPod+ Nike setup isn’t cheap. I know, you’re shocked. The sensor and receiver together (above) are actually only $29, but, see, you can’t use them unless you have an iPod Nano (+/- $149) and a pair of special Nike running shoes (+/- $109). And that, my friends, is just not in my price range.

Except that I found out this morning that Marware’s releasing for preorder a wee little strap thinger for connecting the sensor to any old shoes you want. For $9.95! $9.95 is totally in my price range.

Now I just have to scrape together enough for a Nano and life will be good. I do get an student discount…

technorati tags:Nike+, iPod+, running, covet, shoes, nano

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After months of near-solitude, I find myself with not one but two mama meet-ups in the month of August. Neat!

The first (and possibly most daunting) is a meeting with Portland Mamas Inc., an organization of professional women in the PDX area. The August meeting is kid-friendly (always a plus – not just for the obvious childcare reasons but because I like meeting other people’s babies) and sounds like a good way to get to know some other moms and gather business advice – both of which I need.

The second is a meeting (sans baby) of some of the alt.life mamas at Pix Patisserie:

Dim Sum Yum Yum Extravaganza ~ Choose bite size desserts and chocolate from the rolling cart while enjoying a Belgian beer or dessert wine. $15 includes 6 desserts of your choice. More info about Pix and other events at:
http://www.pixpatisserie.com/index.htm

So, yay. And go me.

technorati tags:portland mamas inc, pix patisserie

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I was watching a rerun of the Colbert Report last night (::insert dreamy Stephen Colbert fangirl emoticon here::) and he was interviewing some horrible feminazi Linda Hirshman about her manifesto book. While I do not own said book, I read the article on which it was based:

You can either find a spouse with less social power than you or find one with an ideological commitment to gender equality. Taking the easier path first, marry down. Don’t think of this as brutally strategic. If you are devoted to your career goals and would like a man who will support that, you’re just doing what men throughout the ages have done: placing a safe bet.

Charming. And:

If these prescriptions sound less than family-friendly, here’s the last rule: Have a baby. Just don’t have two.

And then today I ran across Your guide to the Linda Hirshman media blitz! on Salon. And the reader responses to said media blitz. And I felt compelled to respond. No, not to the somewhat irritating ad non-Salon members have to click through in order to read an article; to the charming perception that I’m wasting my life by staying home with my baby. (Hello, righteous indignation! How I’ve missed you!)

The attacks on Hirshman for only focusing on people with “careers” are a bit misplaced. She’s not telling all women how to live; she’s talking specifically to intelligent, college-educated women and letting them know that the choices they make when young are going to have serious repercussions throughout their lives, in ways that don’t fit the idea that all women “can have it all.”

First of all: the phrase “have it all”? Thoughtlessly offensive. It smacks of “having her cake and eating it too,” as though having a family and having a career are a) fundamentally incompatible and b) luxury items, like a beach house and a Rolls-Royce. Does this phrase ever get applied to the opposite gender? Does my husband – who works and yet, miraculously, also has a baby – have it all?

The last thing women need is a self-described feminist (that means pro-woman, in case you are quite understandably confused) telling them that, unless they make the choices she advocates, they’re making the wrong choices. On top of that, she’s effectively dismissing all but the “intelligent, college-educated women” (emphasis mine). I suppose that, societally speaking, the “stupid high-school grads” out there don’t count. Hello – I’ve just been marginalized! Or do I get a partial vote because I’m just now going for my degree?

[...] if you are one of the lucky few women to have the talent and resources to, say, attend Harvard Business School, your “choice” to leave the workforce is not just about your family. It makes boardrooms remain heavily male, which influences corporate policy; it makes businesses less likely to hire women, because why invest in training someone who’s just going to leave in a few years; it makes other women less likely to pursue careers like that, because they won’t have female mentors; and it will reinforce sexist attitudes *within* the elite schools. So while it is easy for stay-at-home moms to get offended and say, who is she to judge me, it is entirely appropriate for asocietal commentator to judge people’s collective choices.

From a sociological standpoint: yes, it does matter when women choose not to work after having children – but only because society considers it to be an invalid career choice. Who supports the marginalization of stay at home moms? Why, you do, Ms. Hirshman!

Someone is either tolerant of other people’s choices or intolerant. Hirshman is openly advocating taking a critical approach to the way some people choose to live their lives. As if she were in a better position to judge what other people should or should not do.

Amen. The point of having a choice about whether or not to work after having a baby is just that: to have a choice.

And, by the way? That last quote was from a stay at home dad.

technorati tags:linda hirshman, feminist, sahm, sociology

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This is a thing I wonder: how much of my not being depressed is just the second law of thermodynamics? Because, see, when I’m working on something (the business, school, even cleaning the house or whatever) I feel fine. Well – fine-ish. Acceptable. The rest of the time I seem to alternate between two states: too-much-to-do torpor and oh-my-god-I-can’t-function torpor. Which of course look very similar, not that there’s anyone looking.

I’m tired. And I don’t know what I’m doing. And I should know what I’m doing, because I’m doing it, for better or worse. Parenting, running a business, sleepwalking through school…I should feel competent, but I’m quite sure that there’s something very important that I’ve been overlooking all this time and I just don’t know what it is. Maybe I would if I actually got some sleep every once in a while. Or maybe that’s the problem: I spend far too much time trying to sleep. If I didn’t sleep, think of all the stuff I could get done!

I was thinking about this yesterday, when I had some time to kill before meeting Not So after work and decided to try on shoes at Famous Footwear, which led to the realization that my shoe size is, inescapably, a nine. This wouldn’t ordinarily be significant, except for two things:

• All the shoes I own were acquired pre-pregancy, and
• My feet used to be 8-8 1/2.

So I have a closet full of shoes that will never, no matter how much I like them, fit comfortably on my feet. Added to the closet full of clothes that don’t fit for various and sundry reasons, this fills me with a sense of pointlessness.

“Look at this as a unique shoe-buying opportunity!” said Not So.

But, see, shoe-buying implies money-having, and that is not a thing that is. You see. Shoe-buying falls under the same category as hair-cutting, except, of course, that I can’t make my own shoes. I can cut my own hair. I shouldn’t, because apparently my hair-cutting mojo evaporated during my pregnancy along with my waistline, my memory, and my formerly-impressive grammar skills. But I can.

And, see, that’s the crux of the problem. I look schlumpy, I feel schlumpy, and every time it occurs to me that I ought to do something about it I’m faced with the fact that I am no longer a self-sufficient, productive member of society. I don’t bring in an income. I can’t justify things like hairstyling and footwear because any (theoretical) money I spend on myself is money I should be spending on, in order of importance, my kid, my husband, food, our bills, or our business.

Yes, so: sleep. And if I didn’t need it, I could spend my nights as a typist or something and make enough extra money to afford shoes. Shoes, and and a haircut.

And some therapy. But I’d have to work a lot to afford that.

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The Best Buy saga: it continues!

You probably thought it ended with my setting fire to an effigy of a Best Buy store (cunningly crafted out of papier-mache), but yesterday I got a call from what I can only describe as a professional yes-man at the Best Buy headquarters. “I’ve done extensive research into your complaint, and let me first extend my sincere apologies on behalf of Best Buy,” he said. “We’d love the opportunity to make this right for you.”

“Go on,” I said to my voicemail, intrigued.

“I’ve been authorized to offer you the desk at a sweet discount. I’ve contacted all the warehouses in your area and I have confirmation of an actual, physical desk in stock.”

“Hmm…” I said. (You totally talk to your voicemail. Admit it.)

“Please give me a call at your earliest convenience so we can talk about this. Again, sincere apologies. All our fault. Ball dropped. Etc.” I’m paraphrasing here – at some point the obsequiousness began to blend. Not that I’m complaining, but seriously – five minute voicemail? To tell me you suck? While somewhat endearing, it does illustrate the cardinal rule of voicemail, which is: leave your number at the beginning of the message. That way, in the event of a callback, we do not have to listen to the whole damn thing again. I’m just saying.

Still – it’s a novel thing, having your ass kissed. My ass has remained stubbornly kiss-less through this whole thing. The way I look at it, I deserve to have my ass kissed at this point. (Metaphors, people. My ass, massive though it may be, is not up for literal kissing. Follow along.) Plus, we really want that desk. I hate to admit it from my perch on the moral high ground, but the desk? Pretty much exactly what we need for the office, and Best Buy has it for way, way less than anyone else.

I called Not So, and our conversation went much like this:

“Bastards!”

“But ass kissage!”

“Yes. For us! About time.”

“Yay!”

“Yay!”

So we decided to accept the “sweet discount” and allow Best Buy to attempt to insinuate themselves back into our good graces. At this point, we have yet another delivery “scheduled” (I use the term loosely, as apparently do they) for Monday. If the desk comes, I may consent to love Best Buy again, a little. If not…well…I don’t know yet. But something! Something will transpire! And it will probably involve profanity.

technorati tags:best buy, customer service, yes men, corporate

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