MEternity Leave

Seriously, are we really going to have to have this conversation?  I guess we really are. 

Meghann Foye has written a novel in which the main character fakes a pregnancy in order to get paid maternity leave. She calls it "MEternity" leave. http://www.people.com/article/meternity-meghann-foye-maternity-leave-without-kids

Foye says that she came up with the concept when she became envious of her co-workers who were parents who had this ready-made reason to leave work early: the kids. And, she said, the childfree folks were expected to pick up the slack. 

The fact is, before I had kids, I had similar thoughts and similar feelings. In a sense, I know where she's coming from. 

But the solution isn't coming up with this kind of offensive concept of "MEternity" leave, which implies, at least, that Foye thinks maternity leave is some sort of mommy vacation.

Maternity leave, lest there be any doubt, is a 24/7 job that you are thrown into after a major medical procedure, with only a vague notion of how to do it, and with the expectation that you perform at peak levels at all times with little or no sleep.  So maternity leave is the opposite of the relaxing, reflective break that Foye seems to imagine that it is.

And it's also not alway free, not alway a paid three months away from the office.  My maternity leave was only (partially) paid because I used every single hour of vacation and sick leave I had built up in order to draw a salary while I took it. And even then I took leave without pay in order to stay home for 11 weeks after the birth of my son.  So, sure, I got 12 weeks guaranteed, but that was unpaid unless I had the vacation/sick leave built up to turn it into paid leave.

AND THEN, I came back from maternity leave with no vacation and sick leave at all. You end up having to take a lot of time off with a new baby -- they get sick, they get YOU sick, you have to take them for regular well-child visits, etc. It literally took five years for me to build up enough vacation hours so that my family could take a one week vacation to Disneyland.

So yeah, parents are absent from work a lot more than nonparents, and we leave early, but it's not all light and roses and relaxation. Sometimes, most of the time, it's because, e.g., your kid is sick and has been sick for weeks and every drug they use to try to cure him works kinda, but not really, or he has an allergic reaction to them, and you find it is four months later and you are still dealing with this shit. (To give a fairly specific example....)

Parenthood is stressful.

And missing all the work is stressful because we don't like falling behind. And we don't like leaving stuff to our coworkers to cover. We care about you.  You are our friends. My two best co-worker buddies are both childfree. I don't like things falling on them because of my status as a parent. They have important things going on in their lives too.  We parents, if we are at all decent humans, feel guilty that sometimes our crappy assignments fall on our childfree peers because we are out with the kid. And we try very hard to make sure that doesn't happen. 

But, I get it, Meghann Foye. I really do. Because before I had a child...I had those thoughts too. I did.  But I was wrong. And so are you. 

The solution you seek is not MEternity leave. It is a universal paid sabbatical, one that even parents could take to explore other interests or just binge read every book we've wanted to read but haven't gotten around to for the last six years.

And the companion to that solution is a shift in attitude in both the worker and in management regarding expectations at the office. Management should not expect childfree employees to "pick up the slack" every time.  Childfree coworkers should not expect that of themselves.  People should be expected to have personal lives. 

What you want is a fundamental shift in attitude toward work. You want your personal life, not your job, to be the most important thing. And that requires a psychic shift on the part of the individual. That happened for me when I realized how miserable and resentful I was at my law firm job. I resolved to fix that.

And as regards management, if they won't shift their expectations, maybe a job change is in order. I did that too, left the law firm and went to a more flexible, less demanding job.

And finally, Foye wants all women to support each other, to understand each other, be they parents or child free.  But the means of her expression of her hopes for all women -- this MEternity leave concept -- has done exactly the opposite.

It has driven a resentful, and indeed, ignorant, wedge between the workers with children and without, one that need not be there. We can all try to understand each other better. This is as ridiculous and petty as The Mommy Wars. It's hard for all of us, Meghann, and, P.S., virtually every one of us with kids has been a childfree coworker of a parent in the past. We do understand your plight. Please try to understand us too.

Why do Legos drive me crazy?

My house is covered in Legos.  I mean, literally, they are everywhere. 

On The Boy's art table.... 

On the breakfast table....

On the kitchen bar....

And my nightstand....

The bathroom....

On top of the Working Dad's piano....

Welcome to Lego City!

And Ninjago!

Uh-oh, looks like the Empire and/or the First Order and/or the Rebels and/or the Resistance and/or Nexo Knights have taken over Sodor!

Of course, part of it could be my slatternly housekeeping style.  And it does kind of get to me that there's SO MUCH!  I mean we don't have enough flat surfaces in our house for them all.  Sometimes I get to the point where I want to just put up a Lego embargo. No more room, no more sets!

Disassemble them you say?  Noooo, not an option. Once built, the Boy wants them to stay built so he can play with them.

He loves them. And he's good at building them. And then he plays with them. Imaginatively. He gives them voices, makes up stories. It's a joy to watch. 

So far, this has been my solution:

It's imperfect, and, inevitably, things fall apart, but at least it's an attempt to keep them from piling ever higher on our tables and window seats. 

So, now, I guess, it's confession time: it's not just him. No, I have to admit that it's me too. I also like to build. 

This is my Scooby Doo plane and Mystery Machine. 

Nothwithstanding the fact that I have no idea where to put the Legos once built, I bought that Mystery Machine set for myself because I wanted to build it. (My brother gave me the plane for my last birthday.)

These Lego minifigures are also mine. 

That worried Unikitty: mine. 

I bought this set and asked the Boy to build it for me because I wanted it:  It's Hera Syndulla in a tiny version of her ship, The Ghost. (Star Wars Rebels....)

Chinese knock-off Ahsoka Tano minifigure, mine too.

And lest you think that it's just me and the Boy, may I introduce you to the Working Dad's piggie man minifig, four-armed Lord Garmadon, and Lego Creator airplane. 

We are a Lego family.

And just like any family member might, sometimes you love the Legos and sometimes they make you a little nuts.

So we will keep building.  It's fun. It's often challenging (especially when tired or after a glass of wine).

It's something we can do together...as a family.

So yes, we'll build every Lego set that comes our way. And we will free-build with the loose Legos too (which must be kept separate from the built sets, of course). 

After all, I've already started stocking up for Christmas. (No, really, I have.)

Clean Your Plate

Last night, a friend and I took our boys to an indoor trampoline park and out for dinner afterwards to a burger joint.  In the course of conversation, we were discussing our attitudes to food, and our lifetime odysseys with food, and diet, and other attempts to lose weight.

If you know me, or see me regularly, you might have noticed I've recently (over the past 6ish months) lost a little weight (a little over 20 pounds). I did it with the help of my doctor under his monitoring.  (I'm not quite finished losing all the weight my doctor and I agreed I should lose, but I'm close.)  Because, I decided or came to understand with his advice and counsel, that, after all, weight is not an aesthetic thing. It is a physical condition of the body.... Too much of it is not a moral failing, but can do damage to other systems within the body.  And I want to avoid that damage, if I can, especially as I move ever closer to the big 5-0.

But this post is not about my weight loss or how you do it or the reasons one might or might not lose weight.  It's not even about how difficult it can be. It's about an epiphany I had when I was talking to my friend. 

We were discussing how we'd recently had the same change in attitude towards food:  nothing is off limits. If we want chocolate, or French fries, or wine, or bread, then we have it. It's about satiation without binges, we've concluded, and not restrictions.  (And though I have lost this weight, I know that I still have the capacity to binge.)

And I told her something:  I'd ordered fries for my son and me to share at dinner. He had a hot dog. I had a black bean veggie burger. We left maybe half the fries on the table when we left the restaurant and I told my friend that, before, before working with my doctor and having monthly discussions with him about food and attitudes toward food, I would have eaten the entire thing of fries, even though I was kind of full. I would have polished them off because I wouldn't have wanted to see them trashed. Then I would have been stuffed. Not satisfied, but stuffed.

Since last night, I've thought a lot about that admission about the fries. I really have never appreciated, until now, how difficult NOT cleaning my plate has been for me over the years. And so I'd eat and eat, even if I was full. Sometimes, I'd eat because it was expected of me.  "It's dinner time. I know you didn't get lunch until 3, but it's time to eat. So dig in."  Sometimes, I'd eat because I just couldn't see it go to waste (trite, but it's "there are starving kids in Ethiopia, so eat your dinner" kind of thinking).

Just understanding that I don't have to clean my plate anymore has been huge, and I didn't even realize it until I had that chat with my sweet friend last night.

Why am I sharing?  I guess, I'm writing this to say that we all have hang ups that trip us up and cause us to fail. And, many times, they are hidden even from our conscious selves. Sometimes it takes the help of a good professional (like my internist in this case) and a chat with a good friend to shine a light on them.

Nonexhaustive List of Letters I Need to Write to More-or-Less Famous People

To The Barenaked Ladies for writing the The Ninjas, which was guaranteed to calm my infant son when he was fussy. 

To the makers of Planes Fire and Rescue for making a movie that is at the same time enticing enough to watch, yet soporific enough to put a small child to sleep, when every other nap method fails.

To the makers of stickers and poster board for reasons that should be obvious. 

To They Might Be Giants for recording Why Does The Sun Shine? so my son now knows the word, "incandescent"...actually, I should thank them for the entire album, Here Comes Science.

To the estate of Mr. Rogers, whose 1970s self can still engage my 21st century son.

To the makers of Schoolhouse Rock for the same thing, especially the cartoons about numbers. 

To the makers of the new Electric Company because that show actually has taught my kid a thing or two about reading and language.  ("Silent E is a ninja....")

To James Taylor for writing the most reliable lullaby for a four year old, Sweet Baby James.

To LEGO for making my kid an engineer (also, an obsessive collector, but we'll overlook that for now).

Again to LEGO, and, specifically, the creators of Ninjago for being the most direct influence on my child wanting to take taekwondo. 

To Neil deGrasse Tyson to let him know that my son is glad that he's not dead (unlike Carl Sagan)...also that the entire family enjoys his new version of Cosmos (and are also all glad that he's not dead). 

To the parents of the boys on the train today....

On my train ride home today, two young boys -- not more than 11, but probably 10, probably 5th graders -- sat across the aisle from me. They were going home from the private school that is down the street from my office. They chatted and played video games on their phones.  They kept asking each other what stop this was, and what stop they had to get off at.  Reminding each other, really....

I kept wondering whether I'd be brave enough to let my 10 year old ride the train home by himself (well,with a buddy).  I believed this was a great thing for them: independence, responsibility, resourcefulness....  And all within a limited sphere:  just catch the train home with your pal, don't get off at the wrong stop, do get off at the right stop. It was totally within their capabilities.  And this limited independence is exactly what will help these boys become well-functioning adults.

But even though I recognized all of this, and even though I admired these boys and how well behaved they were (their parents should be very proud), I concluded that I probably wouldn't be brave enough.

I thought of The Boy and I was terrified at the thought of setting him out in the world on his own like that.  No, I couldn't do it.  A lump developed in my throat at the thought.

Indeed, I think I paid so much surreptitious attention to these boys because I was thinking of my own boy and how I would hope some adult on the train would silently and secretly watch over my son if he were out on his own. I was fully ready to step in, help them, protect them, if they needed any help.

But they didn't need any help. They were fine.  They had this handled. They knew what to do.

At one point, one of their moms called to make sure they'd gotten on the train. "Yes, MOM."  And she told them that she was in the car in the parking lot at their stop.

And soon, their stop came and they got off, easy as that. I watched them descend the platform steps.  They were confident, unafraid. I want my kid to be like that.

I just need to be like that first, confident and unafraid to let my boy venture out.

Right now, he's only 4 and a half, and he's no more ready to be set out on an almost-grown-up adventure than I am ready to allow it.

Maybe, in five and a half years, when he is 10, he will be, and maybe -- MAYBE -- I will be too.

For now, I'll just send out my thanks to those two good boys' moms and dads for the unintentional lesson in setting your little bird free.  I'll remember it.  It may not be the train, but I'll remember that he needs independence to become a good adult.  And I'll treasure the time right now, when I can keep him, mostly, safely under my wing.

Oral antibiotics are ruining my day.

My son has an ear infection. I'm not sure how many ear infections he's had since June of this year, but this may be number 4. 

He's had trouble with his ears from the start. He got his first set of ear tubes when he was eight months old. When he was two years and a month old, he got his second set of tubes and had his adenoids removed.

He's four and a half, now. Tubes usually fall out after about 18 months, but The Boy's tubes stayed in a little longer than two years, but we were unaware of that until this summer.  (Or maybe we just assumed, but I swear some pediatrician or another along the way had told me, at least, that he/she thought the tubes were out.)

Anyway, in June he was taking swimming lessons and we, thinking that the tubes had fallen out, did not put ear plugs in his ears (which he hates anyway) or make him wear a swim cap (which he's not a huge fan of either, but will wear).

He quickly developed swimmer's ear (an

infection of the ear canal, basically) in his right ear. This likely had nothing to do with his tubes being in, but with an enormous plug of ear wax in that ear, which held water in there, encouraging infection. He was in a lot of pain. We put saline drops in his ear (mistake), and the previously mentioned enormous wax plug thus emerged as he screamed and writhed in pain. It was pretty awful. 

We took him to the doctor, got the diagnosis and he was prescribed Ciprodex ear drops, twice a day for seven days. It's not easy to administer the ear drops. He does not gently lay on his side and allow us to drip, drip, drip them into his ear.  He fights and fights hard. It takes one of us holding him down and the other one frantically trying to get the drops into his ear while he still manages to wriggle around in his other parent's grip. Everyone breaks a tiny sweat from this exercise, but we fairly efficiently get it done. 

Ciprodex for seven days twice day was the prescription for the intervening infections as well. It's a fun, twice daily activity for the whole family.

With this latest infection, we have, yes, the Ciprodex again, but something new too:  an oral antibiotic.

Specifically, this is penicillin. That was a tiny problem in the beginning because when The Boy asked how it tasted neither his dad nor I could taste it and tell him because we're both allergic. But we didn't want to TELL him that we are allergic to penicillin because he'd then tell us HE was also allergic...because he frequently develops temporary allergies to things he doesn't like or doesn't want to try.  So we were vague about why we wouldn't taste his medicine for him saying that it's HIS medicine and we aren't allowed to take it, etc. Fairly unconvincing, I thought, but he decided he would taste it himself and said it tasted like raspberry.

"Great!", I thought. This stuff tastes good. This is going to be easy-peasy. But no, no, nothing is easy. He soon began all of the arguments for why he can't take the antibiotics, mostly variations on the theme of "I don't like that medicine."  Arguments to the contrary like, "I know, but if you don't take the medicine, the infection could get worse and you could lose your hearing," fell on (pardon the very tasteless metaphor) deaf ears.

And, unlike the Ciprodex, where we can manhandle him down and stick the stuff into his ear forcibly, he has to let you give him the antibiotic. He has to open his mouth and take it and swallow it. He has to willingly do that. And you have to convince him to do that.

Well, I do. Every day. Twice a day. Morning and night.

I've tried things to encourage cooperation:  I drew a chart on the side of the bottle with spaces for each dose that we can mark off each time he takes it. Progress!  He's unimpressed. 

The medicine is a chalky white, so I let him choose a color of food coloring to change its color. This was really fun!  And he chose yellow. He really got into it.

Except that he's no fool. He knows that the medicine is the same medicine. It's just yellow, now, and looks like tempera paint.

And the dose is so large that hiding it in food or drink is impractical. Besides, we've tried that before with other medications and he detects it. Sharp cookie, this one.  Tough nut to crack. 

Which brings me to the mornings, when we are all under a time crunch to get to work and school....

The begging, pleading, cajoling, threatening, sending to his room, and, yes, yelling that goes on for 10 to 30 minutes prior to his grudging acquiescence to take the effing sunny-yellow elixir is never fun and always frustrating and stressful.

But the added pressure of time in the mornings turns this joyless task into a nightmare of anxiety-driven frustration and rage (on the part of mommy) and of jumbled obstinance and fear (on the part of boy). Basically, I have to yell at him before he'll take the medicine. I yell. He gets sober.  He gulps it down.  Done.  I feel like the shittiest mom in the world. He happily skips along on his day, recovered seemingly instantly from the fraught stand-off that occurred moments before. 

And I carry it with me, into the car, onto the train, into my office. All day, thinking and wondering how I may have damaged my son by my lunatic, but somehow necessary behavior, until I, of course, will do it again that evening. And the next morning. And evening. And the next.

I start out every encounter not wanting to yell, and occasionally, in the evenings, with the wealth of time, I can keep psycho-mommy chained up. But not in the morning. Psycho-mommy's got to get this shit done.

Today's yell wasn't even words. Not, "You will sit down and take this medicine right now!" articulated at volume.  No, today, when he started in on his explanation that he doesn't "like that medicine; it looks like paint," I had no words. Instead, a guttural, primal, "Ahhhhhhh!" emerged from my throat like an animal under attack. On the bright side, it worked really well and he took the medicine in record time this morning. (Nevertheless, I don't wish to repeat it.)

Only eleven more doses to go!  

Gummy Legos

I'm sure you've seen this video:

http://www.boredpanda.com/edible-lego-brick-gummy-diy-king-of-random-grant-thompson/

It's an instructional video for how to make gummy Legos.

If you have a Lego-obsessed child, perhaps many people have posted a link to this video on your Facebook wall. Maybe, after the fifth or sixth time someone did that, you casually browsed Amazon.com for Lego silicon molds and, even more casually, ordered a few of them to be delivered to you for free via Amazon Prime. And maybe your Lego-obsessed child saw the molds after they arrived at your door, and pestered you daily about what they were for. And MAYBE, it rained on a Saturday morning, and you needed an activity to do with your child.

If it all happened that way for you, then stop reading. You know this story. You lived this story. If not, well, here's a recipe and a little exposition. 

To make Lego gummies, you need the following ingredients:

2 packets gelatin

1 package of jello

1/2 c cold water

1/4 c corn syrup

Mix the water and corn syrup together until the corn syrup is dissolved. The water has to be cold, according to the video, or your gummies won't be clear.  This step takes a long time (because the water is cold)...but not as long as the next step. 

Now, you will put your water/syrup solution into a pot over NO heat. You will pour in the two gelatin packets and the package of jello, and you will stir this cold mixture until all of the lumps disappear.

The lumps will be copious. You will start stirring this concoction with your child who will exclaim:

"It turned purple!"

"It smells like grape!"

And the always heart-melting, "I always wanted to cook this with you!"

But soon, the character of those statements -- commensurate with your child's age, level of patience, and mood --- will change:

"There sure are a lot of lumps."

"Why it take so long to stir all the lumps?"

"Are we done now?"  ("No, we will never be done.")

At some point, your child may dismount the step stool he/she was standing on and begin singing, "Lego Gummies, Lego Gummies, Lego Gummies," while spinning in the middle of your kitchen like a girl tripping at a Dead concert (or Phish, for you youngsters).

And then you will say, "Do you want to go into the living room and play with your Legos while I keep stirring?"  Yes, he/she will want to do that.

So you will continue stirring, attempting to get all the white bits to dissolve, and your kid will have a luxuriously long Lego  session:  plenty of time to switch around heads on many, many, many Lego men. 

Finally, it will look like this:

There will still be tiny lumps in it, but you won't care. 

Time to get this stuff on some heat. Set your burner to medium low. (On my cooktop, the heat setting is numbered 1 through 9, and I chose 4.)  Set your pot of goo onto the burner and cook until fully dissolved, stirring occasionally so the stuff doesn't burn. When it's clear, you're done. Here's what mine looked like:

Not remarkably different in the picture from the pre-cooked stuff, but the liquid went from slightly opaque to see-through. 

Next, the video says you can pour your liquid straight into your molds now, but that doesn't resolve the problem of the foam that has developed on top. That won't make a pretty gummy. The video's suggestion for dealing with foam is to pour your liquid into a heat resistant glass, let it cool for 10 minutes, skim the foamy film from the top, put the liquid into a condiment bottle and then squirt it into your molds. Here's what I did:

Gravy fat separator:  probably gets used once a year, if that, around the holidays, and IF I make a turkey. Worked great for this application.  Kitchen multitasker:  Alton Brown would be proud. 

Now, you're ready to dish out your gummy syrup into the molds. Or you would be if your molds were dry.

Ideally, you would have unpackaged your molds and washed them at least a day before embarking on your gummy adventure. But this is not the ideal world. This is the world in which you washed these little molds with all of their crevices mere minutes before starting your series of long, slow stirs. So before you dish up your liquid, be sure to dry the inside of your molds with a hairdryer to ensure all the little crannies are dry. It won't do to go pouring your liquid into wet molds, thus, (potentially) ruining the syrup you've just stirred your left arm off for. 

Your strange hairdryer activity will draw the attention of your child again, who will come into the bathroom to watch. Your spouse might come into the bathroom too, and remark how surprised he/she is that those molds take so long to dry. 

"Nooks and crannies," you'll say. 

Finally, your molds will be dry. And you and your child will return to the kitchen to dish out the goo into the molds. You'll do it; child will watch. This stuff is hot and sticky. Don't let the kid touch it. 

Once dished into the molds, your child will want to eat them immediately. You will explain that we have to wait for them to cool and set up. 

"How long," the little cherub will ask.

And you will reply, "Five hours," which he/she will not fully comprehend, but will accurately describe as "a long time" before immediately asking again whether he/she can eat a Lego man gummy.

Finally, after lunch, and some play, and a nap, and a stint in the fridge to hurry the gummies along, not quite five hours will have elapsed. Time for a gummy snack!

How did they turn out?

"Yummy!," your child will exclaim. 

Yep, we'll make 'em again.