Dear Students and Colleagues,

 As you have doubtless heard by now, public schools have just- six days before school was to start!- decided to go all-online for nine weeks.  Yes, they have freaked out today about a cumulative regional caseload that looks like this, distributed across a population of almost 300,000:

Lest you think, but the college students! all of ours were tested on return and almost nobody was positive. If this seems misguided to you, wait until you hear the best part: the superintendent, who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is convinced things will be better in 9 weeks. In October. You know what's just getting going in mid-October?

You will note, students and colleagues, that it is, literally, illegal to leave a five year old home alone. Our childcare now consists of two mornings a week of the 16 year old neighbor, a college student one afternoon a week, and my 68 year old mother.  I will be available approximately 30 hours a week to do all the work for my full-time job. This is because the country, state, and university are united in responding to this set of impossible conflicts with a firm and caring  "Dear Parents, Fuck You Very Much." In return, I'm proud to respond to their support in this trying time by offering the bare minimum of effort that will still get me paid!

In summary, if you need something, email me. 

Yours in complete fury,

Jenny F. Scientist

Things We've Done Right

Parenthood sure leaves me wondering what I'm doing a lot of the time.  Why do they fight?  Why won't they just go to sleep?  Why must there be so much arguing about seasonally appropriate clothing when it's 20 degrees outside?  So I was trying to think of things I'm sure we've done right.

1) Having a craft cabinet and a kitchen table we don't care about.  The kids all love to draw and paint and cut things out and we have encouraged it by letting them do whatever.

2) Assigning food no moral value.  There's 'the nutrition your body needs', there's 'treats are tasty but you need proteins and veggies too', there's 'try to eat a balance of different foods', but there is 0% of 'that food is bad for you' in this house.  (We often say if you ate only doughnuts you'd get sick but if you ate only carrots you'd also get sick.)

3) Letting them learn to read at their own pace.  The older kids were both super slow about it but we didn't kill their love of reading and now they're both excellent readers, so, a win!  The littlest one is only four but is learning her letters with great enthusiasm.

4) Trying really hard to teach persistence.  This has mostly taken two forms, either 'I have confidence that you can try to do this thing, and if you really can't after you try, I'll help you', or 'The way to get better at things is to start out not-so-good and keep working, so let's practice math some more.'

5) Letting the adults in the house have needs too.  Sometimes they can wait a few minutes while I go to the bathroom ALONE!  Sometimes they can get their own snacks!  It's great.

What have you done right?  Congratulate yourself!

House Renovations

Dear Readers, the spouse has taken the children off for a week (a week!) with his terrible family.*  My dad came over for a few days, we made a lot of curry (the traditional Christmas food of my people), and we:

• Replaced the kitchen faucet and a bathroom faucet
• Replaced all three showerheads
• Swapped out a bunch of outlets** and switches
• Painted the bathroom ceiling
• Fixed the leaky roof
• Put a new glass panel in the storm door, as it exploded one day
• Hung a curtain rod
• Patched three holes
• Painted Sweetpea's room, which suffered from grubby flat paint
• Polyurethaned two sets of shelves and a set of wooden crates

I also went to a Christmas eve party, went to a knitting party, did the grocery shopping, and cleaned the house.

I have two days to do all the touch ups, re-polyurethane the shelves, and assemble them.  I can do this, right?  Right.

* I have suggested he NOT GO next year

** Only one of which is now completely broken; I think if I get a different/right one it'll fix it

The Annual Break

We are, once more, having the annual Grandparent Visiting Without Me. (I would trade 'in-laws who don't suck' for 'ten days a year by myself' in a heartbeat, but alas, I cannot.)

While the children are gone, I feel the need to do All The Things.  I cleaned, laundered, made ten pounds of meat into jerky, cooked dinner for yet another friend-with-new-baby, spent three hours pruning at Sweetpea's preschool, got a haircut, mowed the !@#$! lawn,  finished a knitting project, went through the entire pile of mending/sewing projects, dropped off school supplies at orientation, filled out ten forms (twice over!), and made another set of Child School Tags.  I still need to make granola and breakfast quiche, register for yet another online class, possibly mow some more** and eventually, start prepping for the New! Improved! Bio For Real Life! class.

It's enjoyable to be alone- some- but the pressure to do stuff is real, and I do get tired of it eventually.  On the other hand: what luxury to be tired of being ALL ALONE.

* The big kids each have a backpack tag with a removable card; on the card is a list of where they go each day after school. (Monday: bus; Tuesday: walk home; etc.)  Yes, I could have bought luggage tags; I am too cheap.  

** I am afraid the mower and I will both end up in the creek.

On Jobs, Part the Millionth (Naptime Blogging)

I recently applied for a job Assessing Things. I was quite well qualified, but they didn't bother to interview me. (I guess that they had already decided who they were going to hire, but anyways.)   This makes three jobs at Mountain U that I've applied for, with zero results. 

There are, functionally, no other viable employers here.  Will my spouse's employer ever employ me?  Will he have to apply for jobs elsewhere to give me any leverage?  (Possibly, but that doesn't make it a good idea.) 

On the other hand, for now I have a job.  It's conveniently located and relatively well paid (per hour). I am not super fond of Endless Lab Which Everyone Hates, but this semester I picked up a lecture which actually contains stuff I care about and/or can engage the students with, and that they don't totally hate.*  Let's be honest: titration is not really a useful life skill, but biology is at least relevant to them being alive.   For Reasons, however, my wages are functionally capped at half-time.  I would very much like to make a reasonable total salary at some point. 

I worry that the longer I teach, the more likely it becomes that I will be stuck teaching forever.  (Yes, I am still doing the certificate in IT Things.)  I'm actually pretty good at it - I can tell where I need to get better, but this is the first time I've lectured since 2004, so cut me a little slack - and I can interest all of my students at least some of the time.  I don't think I'll inspire any of them to go into research (not least because I strongly discourage grad school!) but I can teach them something.  (This year, this is the one thing they'll remember, but whatever.)

But.... I've been doing it long enough to have a reasonable schedule.  I want a MWF lecture with a W lab?  Yep, I can have that.  I can have 3 other labs every semester (this sounds like a lot, but isn't; they're the same lab, and designed to be very little work for me.)  The people who do the scheduling are now different people, and they treat me with respect and courtesy and also it's February and I have a September schedule already.  This is much more workable; the previous chair inspired me to fire-filled rage, so that was 100% not working, but this might be okay.

What do I really want from a job?  Probably... something that feels like a mental stretch at least some of the time, rather than force-feeding science.**  Something where I get better at something that I value.  (I am not sure that the Foie Gras approach to science has value to me, although it is standard for this intro course, for well-founded reasons; also, this is why I didn't major in biology in college.)  Something with a full-time salary. 

But again, I don't know if it's so bad.  I was talking to two of my female students a couple weeks ago, and seeing myself through their eyes practically gave me vertigo.  The person they were seeing is dressed in professional and stylish*** clothing, earned a fancy PhD, takes no nonsense, and leads a nice, fairly well-off, happy life with a good spouse and healthy children.  She has a job where she gets respect, professional fulfilment, and the opportunity to make science interesting.  She's a role model.  (Who is this person?  Not me; I'm the barely-awake mother of a toddler who switched xylem and phloem the other week, and just said a totally wrong thing about epidurals.)

Whaaaaat am I even doing with my life?  I have no trajectory!  I lack a plan!  I am... going with the flow and, incidentally, doing a LOT more of the housework than I'm happy with long-term!^  Ack!  Ack!  Ack!

TL;DR = I flail a lot but this is Good Enough For Now, so nothing's going to change right now.

* This week, in response to a casual question, I gave a short lecture on muscle-related mutations which lead to increased performance in elite athletes. Everyone was interested and awake!  It was great!
**I was offered an upper-level lecture/seminar next term, but it would end up being twice as much work (really) for 50% less money - and a one-off, not a regular thing- so... no. (I pointed it out to my immediate employer in those exact terms, in fact.)
*** My work wardrobe is 100% from our (relatively posh) Goodwill.
^ Because I work somewhat less than half-time.  Also, five-minute commute.

My In-Laws

Me to Dr. S, a few months ago: "Dear, sometime we should talk about what your parents are going to do when they can't live in that giant house any more... which will be in a few years because of [assorted preventable health issues, history of CANCER!! (it was Stage I, ten year life expectancy is unaffected), and a neurodegenerative condition].

Dr. S, very huffy: "I don't see the point!  They won't listen to me anyways and we'll just deal with it when we deal with it and it won't be your problem anyways." [Stomps off.[


Dr. S, this week, after visiting his parents: "Dear, we should talk about what my parents are going to do.  My dad had a fall and eventually they won't be able to live in that big house any more."

(Readers, I RESISTED the urge to say I Told You So.)

Five (Ten) Minute Blogging: Problems, 1

Because practically anything is more convenient than therapy when you have three children and no childcare.

1) Money.  I would like more, because it would ease many other problems.
1A) Continue applying for jobs.
1B) Recognize that a job that is better than nothing is hard to come by here, and try to not be discouraged.
1C) Consider further education?  This seems ridiculous.  Anything other than CPA also seems distance-work-unfriendly.

2) Food.  I can/will eat almost nothing prepared* and I have to cook everything and it takes fucking forever.
2A) Try to make larger batches of things?  Work on list.
2B) Buy more pre-chopped ingredients despite cost.
2C) Make more meat-things despite personal & financial aversion
2D) Wean baby, so as to have more time with screaming toddler standing on feet while cooking (hurrah).

3) Screaming children.  I have reached the end of my patience.
3A) Go to gym a lot, as they have childcare.
3B) Continue applying for jobs.
3C) See about another child swap?  Especially for Endless Summer Vacation.

4) My youngest sister who stopped talking to everyone except my other sister in Israel.  For no reason.  No, really.
4A) Clearly the picture I had of our relationship was completely wrong.
4B) She's having a hard time (maybe? how would I know!).
4C) She is being a crappy person.  A crappy person finds time to pick up a dude and have a relationship but not time to do anything she doesn't want, including deal with overdue tax collections in the US, FOR EXAMPLE.
4D) Who knows, but this relationship is on fire and sinking into the ocean floor.

... and time's up, I have to go do the next sixteen things on my list!  More later.



* two brands of hummus, some tortilla chips (yuck), two flavors of larabar things but not at home because Sweetpea is dangerously allergic to cashews... fruit and beans in cans (yuck).  Everything else is basically 'ingredients' - raisins, oranges, whatever.  

Thanksgiving Rebels

While Babycakes is nursing, I usually read things on the Internet.  Since I'm not a big fan of nonfiction (life is depressing enough) I usually read fiction, or recipe blogs.

My parents did a family Thanksgiving for many years, featuring turkey, smoked corned beef, smoked salmon, and grilled tofu; pig-sausage-containing and vegetarian baked dressing; candied sweet potatoes with and without marshmallows; five kinds of pie; mom's famous rye sourdough; shredded cranberry/apple salad; and freshly prepared horseradish.  And, in later years, green beans and salad in response to Dr. S's plaintive "This is all delicious, but is there something green to eat?" Also a couple special things for our friend with Celiac Disease who always comes.  Bless their hearts for accommodating all of us difficult weirdos.

BUT!  I'm tired of baked turkey.  Time for a revolution!

Readers, I have now decided that what I truly want for Thanksgiving is turkey sausage (possibly sausage gravy and biscuits).  Heresy, I know!

I'm also thinking of brussels sprouts baked until crispy (or, if I have a stove again by then,* sauteed with mustard and wine until crispy), a reprise of the chestnut/cornbread dressing,** and pumpkin custard.  Pie crust is too much work and I don't like it anyways.  Maybe an encore performance of Chocolate Pie For My Sister's Wedding. Possibly something with cranberries but not cranberry sauce because I'm tired of it.

Any suggestions for things that taste of Thanksgiving but aren't a million hours of work, or boring?

*Stovetop bit the dust three weeks ago.  ETA: two more weeks. You can cook a surprisingly large array of things in the oven.  Reminds me of the year I spent in France where I had only a skillet.  Skillet cookies!

** Which I made last year and it was SOOOO GOOOOD.  My uncle has a chestnut tree and he brings me chestnuts every year.  I KNOW.  Having decent family support is amazing.  My dad is coming down next week to watch the kids while I go get my ears fixed, too.  

The Ugly Israeli (Tourist)

The Ugly Stereotypical Tourist! We've all met them, and perhaps we've been them: the person from the flatlands who shrieks in the Louvre "Harold, I can't read this menu!  It's in FRENCH!"*  Or the big city dweller who scoffs at everything, and is constantly to be found saying "In Big City the bagels are superior.  Oh yes, we have a church just like Sacré Cœur there." The (black) Philadelphian who is shocked that there are black people living in the rural South.**

I'm sure there is overlap between all groups of unpleasant tourists.  And by no means are all tourists unpleasant!  Some understand that each place has its own rich cultural and legal history, and that perhaps its inhabitants will get pissy if they criticize every single damn thing.  In other words: It's rude to insult people when you are a guest in their home.

Well, friends, I introduce to you The Ugly Israeli. (Several of them were introduced to me last month!) Who:

• Thinks that all persons not living in cities are ignorant hippie throwback kibbutzniks. 
• Thinks they are therefore qualified to reeducate such people. For example: "You really need to go to a gym to exercise.  That [cutting up a 50 foot tree] work won't keep you healthy."
• Has no conception of the fact that they live in a country the size of New Jersey.  
• With the population of NOVA.
• And therefore there's a hell of a lot of country to deal with.
• Thinks spending a week on the east coast has taught them all about Americans, and makes sweeping and inaccurate generalizations every two minutes.  "Americans don't have charcoal grills!  Americans don't cook! Americans don't drink tea!  Americans....." Really?  REALLY?
• Must be continually be reminded that driving through three medium sized states is the distance from Tel Aviv to FUCKING BAGHDAD. And there are fifty states. 
• Has a national memory that is 65 years long.  Has no concept of legal frameworks arising over 250 years and thinks all your laws and customs are stupid.
• Related: suggests you 'just change the Constitution'.  IF ONLY WE HAD THOUGHT OF THAT.
• Endlessly harps on American racism.  
• Argues incessantly.
• Doesn't know how to stand in line.
• Actually literally insults you in your actual literal home. 

* True story.  I saw it with my own eyes.
** Ditto.  I even tried to keep a straight face.

FMB: Assorted Life Stuff

• We all survived the wedding.  And I totally got bingo.  Also, I seem to have run right out of patience with how poorly my mother deals with feelings.  Helpful hint: lashing out is not productive. 
• Related: the Deeply Offensive Thing that Sister 2 said when she left the country was "There's nobody we really care about here." (It's only been 10 years, why do you ask?). Sister 3 appears to be going for Deeply Stupid Things, including "I had mom tell you because I didn't want to damage our relationship and I'm not good at feelings.". Well, 1) totally opposite effect and 2) at 25, it's time to LEARN.  Difficult conversations don't exactly come easily to anyone.  
• Sweetpea has suddenly learned to crawl, pull up, stand, pull things off tables, and get into cabinets.  Trouble!
• I am teaching one section of Pseudo Military Lab.  I have feelings about the chair.  But the baby is done nursing, so they'll have to wait for later.

Twenty Minute Naptime Blogging: Cognitive Dissonance/ Weddings/ Siblings/ Extensive Complaining

• Sweetpea is napping by herself!  Once a day.  Of course, in trade, she's up every 2.5 hours all night like clockwork. Oh, babies.

• Realization while nursing endlessly (aside from musing on Trapped Feelings): I am dreading Sister 2's (second!) wedding because of some serious cognitive dissonance.  I am putting on a cheerful good-sister face but I am fucking pissed at both my sisters.  

• Sister 2: Still pissed she didn't come to my damn WEDDING.  Yes, I know, it was ten years ago; it's.... a symbol of the last decade, where she dropped out of my life while wallpapering over her abusive spouse and depression; writing lengthy fantastical screeds about Her Amazing Crazy Adventures In The Holy Land (see also: email filter featuring these words); issuing endless condemnations of Americans Are So Materialistic (implication: she is not American at all, our shared past is valueless) while bringing empty suitcases for every visit; voting for the equivalent of Front National every time; and many other choices I found morally reprehensible. Overall, it's the lack of acknowledgment that any of this happened.  Let's just move on to Everything Is Great and ignore the late unpleasantness!  That'll work GREAT. Sister 2 probably also encouraged Sister 3 to move to Israel.  I'm pretty angry about that too.

• Sister 3: Let's recap: got brainwashed by Birthright, took off for Israel five months later, didn't bother to tell me about it in person; finally strong-armed by our mother into coming to visit the day before she left the country; CURRENTLY ON ABOUT HER AMAZING CRAZY ADVENTURES WHY WHY WHY (email filter!); and a bunch of other things that boil down to: dealt with it all in a completely immature fashion, shut me out of her life because she didn't trust me to behave like an adult (based on.... nothing), made choices 'because I have to choose what's best for me' without acknowledging in any way the effect these choices may have on others, and now is amazed that she has bombed the hell out of our relationship.  

• While we're at it!  My mother and her untreated anxiety disorder/ refusal to seek help for anything.  Jesus, Mom, CPS is not coming for my kids, calm the fuck down.  Plus her periodic teary insistence that we should talk to each other (note: my mother has FOUR even-crazier sisters and one of them she didn't talk to for ten years.  Ten.  Years.). Not helpful.  I don't have the time or energy to deal with The Crazy, I don't want to talk to The Crazy, and 'what's best for me' is to not have contact with The Crazy.  

• Naturally, I can't think of a good way to bring any of this up.  It wouldn't help with Sister 3, and I don't really want to start a conversation with Sister 2, "Hey, I'm still fucking furious about all the shit you pulled during your first marriage, and it's really harshing our relationship now, man."  
• Except with my mother.  "You don't talk to YOUR sisters, why should I?" seems perfectly good to me.  

So... I don't want to go to the wedding because not only am I really angry, and Sister 3 will be there and I don't want to talk to her until she advances past Emotional Age: 15, BUT ALSO this is the second tense horrible wedding of Sister 2 that I've been to and she has been to ZERO of my wedding(s) (my wedding was not tense, it was actually quite lovely).  

However, I was raised by some good Midwestern Protestants (my mother is Jewish but at heart she Does What Must Be Done) and so I will put on my nice dress and my smile and bring the pies and punch and hat that I made for My Sister's Second Damn Wedding and I will do the right thing.

And then I will light out of town like my tail feathers are on fire, stopping only to buy $300 of wine at Trader Joe's.  

(Wedding in 2 weeks.)

Family Trips

Have you ever noticed that the more children you have, the more travel becomes like unto packing up a circus, tent and all?  I think we might actually haul a crib mattress, a pack and play, two fans, and a tent to my uncle's house.  I haven't been there since 2002 and I have absolutely zero memory of where I slept.

It always seems like a good idea until you have to start stuffing the minivan!

(Still promises to be more fun than the Greatly Tense Wedding of 2015.  Did I tell you that due to my scheduling failure, it's on the first day of school?  Mother of the year! But also, whatever, it's first grade.)

FMB: Familial Snark

My middle sister is trying to start a company aimed at getting school-age girls to love science.  Leaving aside the advisability of this as a solution for gender discrimination - what, you're going to instill a love of discovery and science in them, so that when they get to higher education, they can be extra disgusted at gender bias and outright stupidity? - I mean, good luck, whatever.  Sure, why not!

However, the Evil Book of Faces brings me regular posts by people she's pitching to, which invariably reference how she's 'overcome so much adversity' (and has a PhD and is so smart, which I'm fine with).  Let's review that adversity: married a jerk at age 19; moved abroad; picked a grad lab full of sexist jerks; changed labs; realized spouse was a controlling, borderline abusive, alcoholic jerk; got divorced; did a postdoc; realized postdoc advisor was a sexually harassing jerk; found another job.

In my world, if your own serially poor choices lead you to EVERY SINGLE ONE OF the difficult situations you are 'overcoming', I don't call it adversity.  I call it taking responsibility and time to grow up and, most especially, adulthood.

In-Laws

Said they would come in November for the Pseudo-Military U Special Parade (same parade as they have every week, but with... more people?) so they could celebrate Tatoe's birthday, which happened last week.

Are they coming?  Of course they're not.  My MIL decided to go to some local quilting thing.  Or maybe they couldn't find somewhere to stay because it's a Special! Parade! Weekend!   Or maybe it's because my MIL went to the doctor and is now having a mildly worrisome Thing (she once drove to Alabama with sepsis for my brother-in-law's tenth (I am not making this up) pilot graduation ceremony.  Or maybe their niece quarrelled with her sister about dog-sitting her sister's dog again so they couldn't possibly ask the niece to watch their dog (I am not making this up either; this was their excuse once; once it was, seriously, that it might SNOW.  It.  Might.  Snow.).

For bonus points, Dr. S mentioned this in front of Bug, who cried.

Let's ignore the part where their only two grandchildren are waaaay less important than a stupid parade which happens every week and twice some weeks.  Let's ignore the part where Dr. S and I have a combined total of two jobs and two small children, and they have no jobs and no small children.  Let's ignore how there is no way in hell we can go there for any of the nobody's-working holidays because I am due December 30th.  I'd just like to say that I refrained from saying anything snarky about how clearly superior my parents are.

Anyhow, my point is, I am over caring even one tiny little bit if they have a relationship with my kids, who have two other grandparents who love them enough to actually come see them.  Dr. S still tries to take the kids up there to see his parents at least a couple times a year, and I understand his motivations, but the road runs BOTH WAYS.  Also, it irritates me to no end that they cause my spouse so much heartburn, disappointment, and grief.

Dear Friends, Family, Casual Acquaintances, Etc.:

Dr. S and I are happy* to tell you that we are expecting a child in December.

Unfortunately, winter is prime time for infections!  As you may know, vaccine refusal in combination with several other factors has led to a pertussis epidemic in the US.  Over 24,000 pertussis cases were reported to the CDC last year.  A large amount of data suggests that the pertussis vaccine essentially provides no protection after somewhere between 6 and 10 years, and that immunity begins to wane after 4 years in both children and adults.

The CDC's current recommendation is that adults receive a single pertussis booster shot, or with every pregnancy, or when over 65.  However, based on the overwhelming evidence indicating no pertussis immunity after ten years, we are asking that everyone who comes into contact with our child let us know they have had a pertussis or TDaP booster within the last ten years, and no less than a month before visiting.  Many health departments will provide this booster for free to all people who are in contact with infants.  We also ask that you receive an influenza vaccine for this winter's flu strains (2013/2014) at least a month before visiting.

If there is a medical reason you cannot be immunized, please let us know; we'll trust to our own (and the rest of our visitors' and families') immunizations to protect you as well as the baby.  If you are not comfortable with being vaccinated, then you are welcome to visit us any time after next August, when the baby will have received enough protection from her own vaccinations to be safer from these dangerous illnesses.

Best,

The Drs. Scientist

* Not really!  But let's pretend!

(Yes, I am really sending an email very like this to our friends and family.  It seemed nicer than 'Get your fucking shots and keep your unimmunized germbags the fuck away from us.')

Now, that IS ironic.

Dear Readers, you will perhaps remember how my mother-in-law wanted to 'ruin Christmas' so she could go to the sixth and final helicopter-pilot-school graduation (which, it turns out, is in February after all), and therefore she had surgery about seven weeks ago.

The graduation is this week.

On Friday she was re-admitted to the hospital with a post-surgical infection. (She is responding well to antibiotics and, again, we expect her to be fine.  However, 'twelve-hour-roadtrip' is not a good idea for today.)

I know I'm a mean person, but some small part of me is chortling.

Choose Your Own Adventure, Annual Christmas Argument Edition

Dear Readers, every year Dr. S and I have the same argument.

Me: "I dislike your parents, there's never anything I can eat, they're disrespectful and annoying, why do I have to go there, why can't they ever bother to come see us*, we don't even celebrate Christmas."
Him: "They annoy me too but they're my parents and therefore I love them and mostly I want to see my brother** and could you maybe be a little nicer to them?  For 48 hours?"
Me: "We've been married for eight years and they haven't even bothered to ask if we'd like any input into the Annual Christmas Ordeal and I still hate it as much as I did eight years ago. No, more."
Him: "They're never going to change and we can accept it, or our kids can never spend time with their grandparents."
Me: "That would be fine with me."
Him: "BUT NOT ME!!!  Why do we have to have this argument EVERY YEAR???"

HOWEVER! This year we get a delightful variation of Choose Your Own Family Dispute!

You are a 67-year-old woman, 50 pounds overweight and in poor condition physically, who is having a bilateral mastectomy and radical lymphadenectomy on Monday.  The following Monday should you:

a) Attempt to have your Traditional Christmas with a big family dinner, six people staying in your house, four kinds of dessert, and all kinds of meals, while under the illusion that you, yourself, will be able to cook this;
b) Accept that you will maybe have been out of the hospital for five days by then and call this year a loss;
c) Insist that your small, snotty-nosed grandchildren come to 'play' with you even though you won't be able to lift your arms and they will give you a nasty cold and a hacking cough;
d) Be terminally miffed that your older son thinks (c) is both stupid and unrealistic and your daughter-in-law refuses to participate in this, and the son is therefore coming by himself;
3) All of (a), (c), and (d)!

* Tatoe is now 26 months old and his retired grandparents still haven't ever seen him.  He is their Grandchild Number Two... of two.  My parents and sister, all of whom are employed and lived twice as far away, each came to Cold State three times since Tatoe was born.  
** Army, therefore limited leave.  None of which he's ever used to come see us either, but whatever, not least because he doesn't expect us to come see him.

In Which I Discuss Broken Family Relationships

This started out really long, but then I realized that it can be condensed to: In functional adult relationships, both sides recognize that the other party has legitimate constraints on their time and on their lives, through necessity, choice, finances, choices about finances, or combinations of these things.  And functional adults respect those constraints within their own constraints.  So, in my world, people work together, and around each other's lives.

***

My sister is apparently coming to the Old Dominion to 'reconcile' with my parents, specifically my father.  Well, I wish my dad the best of luck.

My mother wishes I had a relationship with my sister. I feel that she is a crazy person who lives 6000 miles away, and also, did I mention, crazy, so why?  And she seems to be going through an emotionally unstable period.  Recently, I mortally offended her: she asked what I thought of a biotech company's science, and I had the audacity to tell her (about something which was my scientific specialty, no less*).  Apparently it was really about whether I approved of her life choices!  And here I answered the question I was asked! 

I offered that we could meet them in the next town, when Bug doesn't have preschool - or here, any day and time.  My children have a feeding, nap and sleep schedule, and in general, only true necessity (such as moving 900 miles), things that are only happening once (weddings and funerals), or emergencies (ER trips!) disrupt the sleep by more than 30 minutes.  (Nothing disrupts the feeding.  Because I'm not out of my mind, thank you.)

In response, I got the world's huffiest email about how I was totally unwilling to accommodate her in any way, after she'd come all this way** and how apparently the only way I wanted to see her was on my own terms and that was so offensive and clearly it wasn't worth it.  I see how she might feel that way.  It also makes me wonder - my former BIL's family always threw a giant ticker-tape parade whenever they came to the US, and here I am treating it as something that has to mesh with my life.   My mother mentioned something that happened 20 years ago as fueling this fake rivalry (I certainly don't think of our lives as a competition or compare hers to mine in any way because, get this, I don't care) and there's probably some of that too.  The net effect is, she seems willing to take offense no matter what I say.  I could say "How's your job?" and she would hear criticism of that she works and I don't.  Or I could say "How are your kids?" and she would hear "Your divorce has fucked up your children beyond repair."***

My in-laws are pretty much the same way, but plus a side helping of not being able to believe that the tiniest trace of dairy will make me very seriously ill.  They want a ticker-tape parade, dinner when they damn well want it (I have little kids; they eat at 5:30, sometimes at 5, and again, neither snow nor rain nor heat...), and for us to always come to them.  I haven't seen them in... three years.

And, in both cases, I don't really regret it.  I am willing to write these people out of my lives until they can try to enter into an equal and adult relationship.  Until then, the crazy can stay right where it is.

* Reminding me forcibly of this passage from Gaudy Night:
      'You'd lie cheerfully, I expect, about anything except -- what?'
      'Oh, anything!' said Harriet, laughing. 'Except saying that somebody's beastly book is good when it isn't. I can't do that. It makes me a lot of enemies, but I can't do it.'
      'No, one can't,' said Miss de Vine. 'However painful it is, there's always one thing one has to deal with sincerely, if there's any root to one's mind at all.'
I neither can nor will lie about science. 

** Number of times she has bothered to come see me, while in the country, in the last five years: ZERO. Number of times she has flown across the whole country to see distant relatives: Twice. Likewise, number of times I have gone to Israel to see her, plus number of times I will ever go to Israel to see her: ZERO.  Also, last time she was in the country, I had a one-month-old - not precisely an event one can reschedule.

*** Sum total of my response to her divorce:  I'm sorry to hear that, it sounds very difficult, I hope that the court proceedings go smoothly, and here is a book about co-parenting with a narcissistic crazy ex, I hope it helps you negotiate with him.  

Bad Mother

Once, when I was a small child, I did something appalling and my mother said, "And how do you think that makes me feel?"

I looked her straight in the eye and said "I think it makes you feel like a failure as a mother."  

(She never asked that question again.)

There are some mornings where my children take turns shrieking - once, for a record four hours!  Of course, the more they scream, the less I want to interact with them.  Clearly, I am doing it all wrong.  If only I would come running / get out markers now now now/ read a long book/ wrestle on the floor this very moment, this wouldn't happen.

(Or they'd turn into the whiny, spoiled, rude, attention-seeking, no-respect-for-boundaries nine-year-old I met at the Arboretum, who managed to be completely intolerable for a full 45 minutes despite the fact that we were all OUTDOORS.)  

But what actually happens on bad days is: I say, "I need ten minutes to finish my work"; Bug pushes Tatoe; intervene; feed Tatoe; go back to the thing I was trying to do; Bug steals Tatoe's toy; Bug screams; carry Bug to timeout; feed Tatoe again; change Tatoe's diaper; let Bug out of timeout; Bug pushes Tatoe again; take Bug to timeout; clean up smashed cornflakes; give Tatoe water; let Bug out; try to finish the thing I was trying to do; intervene again; give Bug a snack; try to FINISH ONE THING SO HELP ME; sit on the couch ignoring the screaming; repeat from start.  Except I'm not conveying the part where at least one child is shrieking the whole time.

(And by work I mean unimportant things like MOVING and BILLS and things that must be done during business hours.)

Usually the day goes downhill from there.

I hope, as the children get older, there might be fewer days where I feel like a complete failure as a mother.

Le Divorce

(Not me.)

My sister is getting divorced.  I won't go into it, except than to say, they've both behaved like spoiled, irresponsible children. I hope their two young children will come out relatively unscathed, but I deeply doubt it;  her soon-to-be-former spouse possesses a crazy, completely unstable family and the worst-ever role models.  As in, this person's parents are still putting their children in the middle of their conflicts, and they've been divorced for twenty years.

Anyhow.  Both of these people decided to join a right-wing religion that preaches how women are inferior and men are in charge of the household.  My sister got a PhD, at which point her spouse started feeling threatened by her independence, and it went downhill from there.

Frankly, I couldn't be less surprised at the outcome.

(Although the fact of the divorce did cause me to call my friend R and shriek into the phone for a half-hour, "What the @#$!  WHAT THE %@#$!!!!!"  Sadly, I had laryngitis at the time, which lessened the impact.)