Bittersweet victories

Gabriella got a job.

Of course, we’re both relieved after 11 months of nail biting agony wondering what was to become of us. A few friends offered to put us all up in their houses. I’m sure the invitations were genuine, but they are most likely just as relieved that we will not be squatting in their living rooms. I won’t divulge the details of Gabriella’s new job. She can write her own blog. I’m sure she’s getting right on that. Nor can I thank those who opened the door for her in this very public forum. Suffice it to say, our village came through, and we are grateful.

We’re supposed to be cracking open the champagne and celebrating the end of unemployment and financial ruin. I can’t. Her job keeps us from foreclosing on our house but requires that I work full-time, as well. Certainly there are worse fates in life, and I’m well aware. Our blessings are numerous, and I am grateful for all of them. I’ll share all that blessing crap on my Thanksgiving post, of course. For now, I’m feeling a little bit sorry for myself, and I’ll thank you to allow me a moment to mourn my life at home with my kids. We’re keeping the Veuve in the cabinet. It’s an Asti Spumante toast for now.

“What’s the job, Deborah? Tell us. Tell us, do!” Well, if you must know because you spend so much of your day imagining what I’m doing, I’ll tell you that I will be working in the noble and virtuous and glamorous world of online advertising sales. That’s right. You wish you could be me. It’s a normal reaction. And if that is the case, feel free to drop me a line. I might want to be you...if your wife, girlfriend or au pair is hot. We can try to pull off a Freaky Friday kind of thing and spend a week in each other’s shoes until we both beg to return to our sad little lives because we found another life that was even sadder. Game?

Guess I’ve got a case of cold feet. I thought my toes were numb because we can’t afford to heat our house. Though we’re surrounded by two income families, I can’t imagine what our world is going to look like once we’re both working outside the home while some stranger takes over my life in my house looking after our boys. Sure I complained every now and then about being stifled and suffocated and underappreciated. Whinging is the national pastime for stay-at-home mothers. We all do it, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we’d rather be somewhere else.

But now, I will be somewhere else, and I have exactly 9 days to rally. Gabriella is negotiating her start date, but it looks like we have a small window of time to work out childcare. For anyone who has ever hired someone else to take care of your kids, you know that it takes a minor miracle to find a good nanny. When I began the job search, I considered the ad I would place. It would read:

Full-time Nanny wanted at competitive salary who is a nurturing, energetic, responsible caregiver for 2 sweet, respectful children aged 3 and 6. Light housekeeping. CPR certification and valid driver’s license required. Fluent English speaker preferred. Please provide references who will verify that you are Mary Poppins come to life.

Reality has slapped me with the back of its hand and yelled, “WAKE UP YOU FUCKING AMATEUR!”

I’ve come to realize that my expectations might be a bit high. My ad now reads:

Will pay more than my own full-time salary for a nanny who has a pulse and a car.

Anyone?

Picture day

Haiku
Picture day at school.
Chose hair wax over Mom’s Spit
to tame his bed head.

Asher: What’s that? Why are you doing that to my hair?

Deborah: Eat your breakfast. We don’t have a lot of time.

A: OW! Something’s in my eye!

D: Nothing’s in your eye. I’m trying to make your hair look nice for Picture Day.

A: What’s on your hands? It hurts!

D: I really don’t think hair wax hurts. Now, my nails scraping against your scalp while I’m styling your hair....that might hurt.

A: What is hair wax?
Clearly, there’s not a lot of beauty talk in our house.

D: We use hair wax to style your hair.

A: What does that mean, style?

D: When you style your hair, you’re trying to defy the laws of physics and get it to do what you want it to do. (because my mother obviously did not have access to such tools for my Picture Day)

D: Now, if they take pictures after lunch, please try to remember to wipe your face after you eat.

A: Why?

Really?

D: So that you have a nice, clean, handsome face for your picture.

A: I don’t want it to be Picture Day.

Such pressure. Anxiety set in the day we received the first flyer a few weeks ago. PICTURE DAY NOVEMBER 12, 13, 17 and 18. Well, which one is it? His hair is on the long side, but if we cut it now, and his class is up on the 12th, he’ll look like Howdy Doody without the freckles. What should he wear? The note says we should choose bright colours. Of his more formal attire, we’ve got a brown shirt, a forest green cardigan and a pink and white striped button down shirt. He looks great in pink, but a gay mom raising a sensitive boy thinks twice about pink shirts. Don’t judge until you’ve walked in my sensible shoes!

How did pink become a feminine colour anyway? This looks like a job for the world wide web. So very enlightening. Apparently, real men DID wear pink according to an article on GentleBirth.org. A potted history for your consideration:

The practice of pink for girls and blue for boys was not common until after World War II, partly because there was considerable disagreement about which color was appropriate for which sex. The Infant's Department, a trade journal, tried to settle the question in 1918: "There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for a boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.

Clothing manufacturers complained that greeting-card companies were confusing the issue by using pink for girls and blue for boys in birth announcements. The greeting-card people pointed to Gainsborough's "Blue Boy" and Lawrence's "Pinkie" as proof they were right. The debate continued for decades. In 1939, Parents magazine polled customers in a New York department store and found that, while most preferred pink for girls, about one-fifth favored blue for girls and pink for boys. The first children to be consistently color-coded by gender were the post-war baby boomers. Pink has been an exclusively feminine color for only about 40 years. (This explains all the sweet, elderly ladies who thought your son was a girl even when he was dressed all in blue.)

Further investigation suggests that the pink triangle that the Nazis forced gay men to wear sealed the deal on the feminization of the colour pink. Just imagine that not so long ago, blue was a girlie color! Of course, the fact that we feel the need to assign a gender to any colour at all confounds me.





Asher wore his forest green cardigan, and he looked very handsome. ..except for the huge chunk of hair that stuck out straight on the side of his head when he woke up this morning. Girls may have a monopoly on pink, but product is for everyone.

Need to find a job. We're running out of staples.

I have to get a job. I’ve been talking about getting a job for months, but I never really meant it. A little voice kept calling out, “Gabriella will get a job soon, and you can carry on as if this last year was a bad dream, and all will be right in the world!” That voice has gone a little hoarse. Now it sounds more like, “Gabri [COUGH] will get a [COUGH] [COUGH] soon. All will be ...” “What’s that you say, little voice? I can’t quite understand you through your hacking cough. Can you say it again so I can justify burying my head in the sand while Gabriella scratches and claws for a job?”

“I said... all will be right in the [HACK] OH, WHO ARE WE KIDDING?!? GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GET A JOB YOU LAZY WHORE!”

“Um, I think you have the wrong number.”

Yeah, so I need to get a job. Ok, one last tantrum.

I DON’T WANNA GET A JOB!! I wanna wear jeans ... the same pair until they start to walk on their own. I wanna set my own schedule and stay inside on a cold day if I feel like it. I wanna have a bad day without apologising to anyone. I wanna hide the muffin top behind sweatshirts instead of suit jackets. I wanna talk to myself-out loud. I wanna sleep soundly not having to worry about whether my nanny is going to quit or ignore my children or teach them about Jesus. I wanna spend the few hours both kids are in school working on my craft (read writing blogs to a Pandora music selection of my own design). I wanna whine about how undervalued stay-at-home mothers are.

I’m finished now, and I'm ready to hit the pavement. I had to try on some old suits I wore before I had children. I’ll do THAT again when I feel like I’m on top of the world and I need to take myself down a few notches. Need to go shopping. Thankfully, I found a little something that I could actually fasten as long as I didn’t eat or breathe to wear to my first interview last week. What a surreal experience to be suited and booted and gasping for air.

And when the interviewer referred to my husband, I said nothing. INSERT SOUND OF NEEDLE SCRATCHING VINYL . What’s up with that?!? Do you know how long it has been since I’ve had to come out? No? Me neither! Then again, I don’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday. But I’m fairly certain that I have not had to come out for a very, very long time. I live in Gay-ville, U.S.A. for fuck sake. I have surrounded myself with gays and gay-friendlies. I live in a bubble, and I like it thank you very much.

When I plugged in the destination of my interview into my GPS, the Navigation Oracle told me I had to drive for 22 minutes. She neglected to tell me to bring an oxygen tank and to grow a pair. The night before the interview, I studied my resume. I researched the company, jotted down speaking points, thought of smarty pants questions to ask. I did not prepare for the Pronoun Game. Have you never played? Oh, do give it a go. The next time you meet someone for the first time, speak openly and freely about your family without giving away your partner’s gender. My, ‘tis fun to do.

“Do you really think that it’s the right place for you, Deborah?” asked a friend after I told her about my closeted interview. “Well no. The right place for me is at home in Gay-ville where I don’t have to think twice about what I say to whom.” Truth is I don’t think the interviewer would have skipped a beat. But I need a job, and I wasn’t feeling confident enough on my first interview in 8 years to get all out, loud and proud. I didn’t refer to my lesbian lover, and I didn’t mention that there is no God or that Chris Christie is a hate-mongering moron. What were Mr. and Mrs. Christie thinking when they named their son Chris? I didn’t ask the interviewer that question, either. Then again, nobody asked me about God or Christie.

If I had to do it over again, I don’t know if I would have said something like, “Husband? Good heavens, I don’t have a husband. I have a wife in Canada and a Civil Unionite in New Jersey.” I think I’ll just have to play it by ear and trust my instincts.

There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.



Did it work? Am I back in my bubble?

“Yes, but you still have to get a job.”

Shut up little voice.

Lesmorphication

As children, my sister and I would often confound friends and family who could not tell who was on the other end of the phone when they called. We inevitably had to tell the caller which sister was speaking. Apparently, we sounded exactly alike. It never bothered us, really. Two girls with only 3 years between us learning phone etiquette from the same source. How was anyone supposed to know who was who from a simple “Hello”?

Here I am in the same situation again with my lady-friend. When I answer the telephone, friends pause and I know that they’re flipping a mental coin and guessing which one of us might be on the other end. At that moment, I’m tempted to put them out of their misery. “This is Deborah,” I could say but don’t. We all know that lesbian lady-friends too often fall victim to Lesmorphication: when a girl-couple dresses alike, looks alike and picks up each other’s mannerisms. But I have no term or scientific data about the instances of two women morphing together aurally. That sounds a bit rude, doesn’t it? It does, and I like it.

Was it always this way? I personally don’t think that we have always sounded the same. I pride myself on my regionally neutral accent and impeccable grammar. I rarely infuse sentences with filler words such as ‘like’ and ‘you know’ and ‘um’. It was my Bubby’s dream that I become a news anchor because I could put my good diction to use. She also thought that female news anchors were the perfect combination of sexy and smart-without being too smart. According to Bubby, a woman could, in fact, be too smart. Back off. She was old-school.

Gabriella, on the other hand, is my principessa from Queens. She was 5 and her sisters were 13 and 9 when they emigrated from Italy. They speak Italian beautifully. When the family speaks in English, however, there is no trace of Italy in the Queens accents they’ve adopted. Pecatto. The Queen’s English and Queens English could not be more different.

While the use of the word “your” in one of the last slides of this clip offends, on balance, this is an educational and funny tutorial on the accents of New York.


When anyone confuses us, I bristle a little. Gabriella laughs because she is very familiar with my snooty undertones. Can’t everyone distinguish between news anchor perfect speech and Bridge & Tunnel twalk? If I’m being honest, Gabriella doesn’t actually have much of a Queens accent. It’s curious how her family speaks thick Queens while it is virtually impossible to identify Gabriella’s borough of origin. Every now and then, a word escapes that gives her away, but by and large, she shed the accent of her yute.

Perhaps we are, in fact, becoming the same person. It certainly doesn’t help that she’s been unemployed and home since December. We're clearly spending far too much time together. I still have no desire to cook, but Gabriella is getting quicker with the one-liners, and some of them make me laugh. Either she’s getting funnier or my expectations are getting lower. As soon as I pick up a wooden spoon and threaten to whip up some food instead of whipping anything else, we’ll know that Gabriella and I are no longer individual people. In the meantime, I’m going to try on different phone greetings to make life easier for our callers. Don’t be surprised if you hear me ask, “Hello, is this the party to whom I am speaking?” Let’s just hope that I don’t pay homage to Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine when a prospective employer decides to call.

Crayons and canals

When my friend offered to drive me and the boys to The Crayola Factory, I jumped at the chance to keep the kids busy for an entire day. This week, we had to suffer the New Jersey Education Association convention a.k.a. the Your Kids Drive Us to Drink Boondoggle. Apparently, teachers gather from all over the Garden State in the name of professional development. This year, the 4 day convention was in .... wait for it ... Atlantic City. I’m thinking a few dates with a one-armed bandit and an evening with Daughtry was the backroom reality behind the alleged noble workshops such as the study of renewable energy sources and building solar car models. All I know is there was no school for either of my children for 2 days, and I would have agreed to go spelunking in a bat-infested cave rather than stay home with the both of them for 2 days in a row.

I feared that The Crayola Factory would be an enormous advertisement of all things Crayola. It was. Having said that, it was also room after room of creative, interactive fun-all for the low price of $10 for anyone over the age of 3. I will confess now in front of the world and Crayola Factory employees that I did not pay for Levi’s ticket though he turned 3 last month. Hey, it’s not my fault the NJEA chose to abandon our children a month after his birthday.

“Wait, what? He turned 3 last month, Deborah, and you didn’t post anything about your own child’s birthday? What kind of a mommy blogger are you?” Oh, go blow it out your pie hole. I never said I was a mommy blogger. I’m a blogger who happens to have kids, so I write about them from time to time. Besides, we’re skipping the all-singing, all-dancing birthday parties this year. It took me 5 years to come to terms with the fact that Asher prefers a small celebration with family to a rowdy party with unruly children screaming and whining and running around like howler monkeys on cocaine. And Levi is happy with a cake and candles. “Do you need to throw a birthday party to share with your readers how a mother feels about her baby turning 3 years old? Don’t you want to share with us how bittersweet it is to watch your children grow and become more independent? Don’t you mourn the loss of infancy and all those moments of sweet helplessness with your newborn baby?” You’re starting to annoy me, and I choose to ignore you.



After a few hours of dripping wax on paper, finger painting, writing on walls and various other Crayola-related activities, we went to the equally popular National Canal Museum upstairs: “the only museum in the country dedicated to telling the story of America’s historic towpath canals.” I kid you not, The National Canal Museum is worth an hour’s drive in a friend’s car that has no DVD player. I know, horrifying! Levi was not pleased to say the least. He can smell a highway ramp a mile away and looks forward to long trips in the car because our children can only watch DVDs on the highway...because the DVD player doesn’t work unless we’re on a highway, of course. Alas, it was not to be, and Levi was none too pleased. I’d endure his DVD withdrawal again and again for a day at The National Canal Museum.

It may not be every child’s dream destination, but it worked for our kids. Asher, in particular, could have stayed there for hours filling up a sack with bean bags to figure out how much weight pulled a model train up a mountain whose slope he could adjust with a wheel. Levi’s favourite station was the water table where kids can design a maze made up of individual tiles and redirect boats in the path of their choosing. They both liked moving the boat tiller and making the floor move as a boat would move in the river. And along the way, we all learned quite a bit about canals and Cannallers.


After a long day of crayons and canals and yet another tantrum from my nap-deprived, DVD-starved 3 year old, we got home in time to have pizza and set up the air mattress for Asher’s first sleep-over with the friend who took us on our tour of crayons and canals. His cousins have slept here, but this was a first time he invited a friend to spend the night. He has yet to sleep over at a friend’s house. Still, it counts. A first.

It’s true, there are no babies in this house. Asher’s learning so much this year about himself and the world, and Levi shed the last vestiges of baby with his full sentences and his big boy bed and his 3rd birthday. My babies are growing up, and I like it. So much for mourning infancy.