Single Moms

I am in awe of single moms. How do they do it - really, how do the logistics work? I was fairly prepared for our lives to change when we had a baby; I knew you can't leave a baby alone ever, so I figured we'd do a lot of swapping off baby duty so we could both keep going to our jobs, doing the grocery shopping, taking showers, and all the other necessary things of life - that, or take her with us. And with the help of my amazing parents, it has worked out. I feel like my share of the work is a bit bigger just because I'm still nursing, so I have to drop what I'm doing every 3 hours and pump or nurse, then wash out bottles and pump parts. I'll be glad when that phase is over.

Anyway, my husband is on a ten-day business trip right now so I'm on my own with the baby. I still have to go to my job and I have a huge freelancing assignment that is eating up all my spare time. I'm a bit stressed about finishing it. I get the work done in 5 minutes here, 3 minutes there, hopping up constantly to attend to the baby's needs. She plays quietly for a few minutes at a time, but then wants to interact with me, or goes after some hazardous item in the apartment, so I really have to supervise her with one eye the whole time I'm working, and it slows me down to a snail's pace. I get most of it done at night after she's asleep. Since this job is so enormous, lately I've been staying up till ridiculous hours to get my daily quota done. I'm only getting a few hours of sleep a night. I usually have to eat (raisins, chips, or something) the entire time I'm working just to stay awake - otherwise I find myself nodding off as soon as I sit down. Not to gripe; it's an interesting assignment and I'll be glad of the money. I just wish I didn't have to do it on top of everything else. I wish I was only working at my office job. Or only taking care of the baby. Or only doing the freelance job. Having to do all three, with no backup (except for the aforementioned amazing parents), is rough.

So having had a taste of working single motherhood, I just don't understand how it's possible. How can you look after a baby if you have to work, which if you're single you must, in order to support yourself? I guess daycare is the answer, but I know my salary alone would barely cover the rent on our one-bedroom apartment, so I certainly wouldn't have any money left over for fripperies like food or daycare. Do you just go deeper and deeper into debt until the kid is old enough to go to school, when (finally!) there is a safe, free, supervised place where you can leave them all day and you can start to make some headway against the bills? And if you are alone and have no one to pass the baby off to, how do you manage things like dentist's appointments, job interviews, or even a movie with a friend, where you just can't bring a baby with you? I guess you just get more aggressive about finding babysitters (so far we have yet to leave her with anyone but my parents and, twice, with friends). But babysitters are expensive. From every angle, raising a child alone must be a Herculean task.

A Handy Rhyme

Here's how to remember the difference:
Medicare is for people with no hair.
Medicaid is for people who don't get paid.

Or perhaps I'm the only one who gets those two mixed up.

In other news, I tried circus peanuts - the candy - for the first time in about 20 years today. I remember liking them as a kid, and I thought perhaps they would fall into the category of Things That You Know Are Bad For You But You're A Sucker For Them Anyway, like chicken nuggets and Reeses Pieces peanut butter cups. I'm happy to report that they are awful! I will have no trouble at all resisting them for the rest of my life. They are like plasticky pieces of styrofoam infused with chemical perfume. After I'd eaten one, the sickly-sweet plastic smell kept wafting out of the bag, until I had to get up and throw it away.

I Wore Pajamas to Work

By mistake. My neighbor was getting rid of a big bag of clothes, so I rummaged through it and was pleased when I found a few things my size that I really liked - a few long-sleeved casual tops, a pair of drawstring pants I can wear for yoga, a white pullover, and even some shoes that fit. Everything looked like it was still new.

This morning I reached for the white pullover, which is long enough to go down over my hips and tight-fitting in the sleeves, and has little tiny nubbins all over it. It seemed like a perfect choice for a day that was unseasonably chilly, and it looked sharp with dark pants and dangly earrings. It wasn't until I got home that my husband took one look at me, laughed, and said, "You wore your pajamas to work!" I said, "What do you mean?" "Those are long johns," he said. "Of course they're not," I said. Then I went to look in the mirror. He's right, dang it.

Luckily no one at work looked at me funny or said anything. Maybe I got away with it?

Watch Out for Farmers

Sometimes I really feel at odds with farmers. I am supposed to feel sympathy for them - farming is such a hard job, after all, and most small farmers have to work a second job in town just to keep ahead of the bills, and the loss of rural communities across America is so sad, etc. I guess I feel respect for the ones who are trying to do a good job - trying to farm organically or abide by humane standards in the way that they raise their animals.

But the vast majority don't seem to care much about things that are so critically important to me. Like the environment. They drench their fields in pesticides and rake over the ground with their tractors until the soil just crumbles and blows away. Or they stuff chickens into cages so small that any thinking person would hurt to look at them. They talk about vegetarians as though they're vampires - they talk, seriously and with great conviction, about how "vegans are out to get our kids". It's almost as though they get set, at some point, into a kind of antagonism with the earth and nature - bent on extracting whatever they can get from organisms that, they think, owe them a living. Even the occasional organic farmer that I meet has this weird worldview - what I think of as an exploitation complex - that the earth is here for us to use, by any means possible. One I met said he didn't believe animals could suffer - that what might appear to be suffering was really a misinterpretation on our part. I'd like to stick him in a farrowing crate, in a space so small he couldn't stand up or turn around, and misinterpret his cries for help.

At the Same Time

Before now, I never knew it was possible to be simultaneously ribby and paunchy. Not that either is an extreme - I don't look like a starvation victim or anything, and I think I am safely out of the realm where anyone could mistake me for being pregnant. I just look like a normal thin person with a slightly poochy belly. I wonder if I will always have it, if it's one of the trade-offs involved in motherhood that everyone learns about and quietly gets resigned to. It's like having a few white hairs and simultaneously a few zits - two other things I didn't know you could have at the same time. Alas, you can.

I read recently about a mom who's expecting her 18th child. She's only 41 and is planning to have "as many children as God will give us." I think it's so unfair that some friends of mine have invested thousands of dollars and untold emotional energy trying to conceive a baby, and recently have had to come to terms with the fact that they cannot have children. They're only in their late twenties. And meanwhile this couple has so many - surely more than they "need" to feel fulfilled, and far more than this overburdened earth needs from a single couple. I loved being pregnant; I hope I get the chance to do it again someday. But oh my gosh. 18 times? That's just too many.

Feeling Protective

Visiting a neighbor with a one-year-old baby:
I lifted my daughter out of her carseat and set her down on her feet by the sofa, where she could hold on (she's quite good at standing now). She gazed around looking slightly startled and concerned. Piers, the one-year-old, was obviously heftier than she was and much more mobile, toddling rings around his stroller and all over the living room, picking stuff up, and babbling happily to himself. He toddled over to her and clutched at her face, patted her shoulder, then grabbed again at her face and cheek. She looked concerned. I reached over to tactfully disengage Piers, but he slapped at her and hit her nose, and her face crumpled into tears. Piers toddled off cheerfully while I told her, "It's OK." I could feel her fear and hesitancy about the situation, and felt a rush of love. I wanted to protect her. But parenthood is all about putting your child into unsafe situations, repeatedly, so that they can grow and learn to be independent. I had to just sit there and watch as Piers approached again, though I wanted to sweep her up and take her away.