Life of a Slow Driver (#2)

Sometimes when a car is stuck behind me on a one lane road and I'm not comfortable going faster, I imagine that I'm an exotic insect catcher (usually fancy cars are the ones bothered by my speed-limit abiding tendencies). When the lane opens up, I think to myself, "Fly like the wind, butterfly! You're free!"

Camping Will Solve All of Your Problems

Are you overwhelmed with mess? Wondering what the purpose of life is? Generally irritated at the world around you?

Camping will effectively bring you purpose, let you have space from the world, and eliminate the messes created in your house or apartment for the duration you spend away. This tactic is actually quite compatible with children, at least as long as you

1. Camp in an area that is not infested by racoons
2. Camp in an area that is not surrounded by a raging river/cliff drop-offs/mountain lions/virus carrying mosquitos
3. Camp in an area that is within a few minutes of a grocery store and at least one fast food restaurant
4. Have extendable arms
5. Have more than two arms
6. Have a magically appearing stock of sippy cups and clean water and goldfish and cheese sticks and veggie straws.

If you are interested in this approach to getting a new start to life and you own a home, you may want to consider buying a pet racoon. This nocturnal omnivore will eat through your various doors and walls and eventually require the demolition of your home. However, as you will still own the plot of land, you will be left with a very clean lot of dirt, with which to set up a spare, minimalist arrangement, perhaps with the aid of a tent.

If you don’t own a home, you may want to forego causing any damage to your immediate building, as this will only leave you truly homeless and in debt, for you will have neither roof nor place for belongings nor--and this is the important part--a piece of land to easily camp on. However, with some preparation, you can notify friends or family of your camping intentions and spend increasing lengths of time camping in back or front yards.

Suddenly, your clutter problems will be over and you will have the mental space to focus on the now, prioritizing the pressing need to keep you and your children fed and clothed and at a sustainable body temperature.

New family pet included.

Oklahoma

The season is changing and the sky is softer and the leaves are crunching and the wind is stirring and all things are alive and dying with autumn. We've spent the last few days at a corn maze and a pumpkin patch, pumping water to race ducks and the little one throwing balls in a pit of thick, cool, dried corn kernels. Dirt is filling our nostrils and the seams in our palms. Two little pumpkins, an orange gourd laced with green and a green gourd laced with white lay on our wooden table, a small, yellow-hued thing that we love dearly.

And this morning is was, oh, such a beautiful morning.

So for all of these reasons, here is that most wonderful of states, Oklahoma.

 

Baby Food

New York

One day, dear New York, I will visit you. But for now I'll just be catching up on sleep.

I'm Biased

Sometimes, it’s easy to think that if we are a woman, disabled, an ethnic minority, a religious minority, LGBTQ or otherwise part of a group often stereotyped, that we have no biases against ourselves and that nothing we do or say ever perpetuates biases or misconceptions. However, despite being a woman, I have definitely thought horrible shameful sexist thoughts like “Really? My doctor is a woman? Fancy that!” or “Wow, that man is such a good nurse! Look at him throw my bandages in the biohazardous waste receptacle!”

And even though my husband has Cerebral Palsy, I’ve thought despicable things about people with physical disabilities like “Oh that poor person must be so lonely and I hope they get to eat yummy meals like pancakes for dinner.” Or if I see someone pushing someone else in a wheelchair, unless they both have white hair and crinkly skin, I probably think “Wow, look at that caretaker go, and look at that other person being awake and out of bed!” Instead of, “Look at that cute couple!” even though if one day Michael is in a wheelchair and I am pushing him, I want people to think “Look at that cute couple!”

Even Michael has told me that he’s had these terrible, awful thoughts and even about other people with obvious disabilities, and sometimes he has them even though he makes himself sad for having them, and then he feels sad-times-sad, and then he feels extra sad because he doesn’t want other people to have those thoughts about him.

It’s not just about disability or gender or race though, it’s also just about human-being ness. I think thoughts like “Oh that person is crying they are having a bad day :( maybe their dog died or maybe they lost all their homework... One day they’ll know what it’s like when their baby is screaming his lungs off in his crib and they are afraid of scary possibilities of strangers sneaking into our house. One day that sad person will be sad about things like that, and then they will be really really sad, I bet they have no idea how sad, but now is probably a good time for them to be sad about things like losing their homework.” I might think this the day after sobbing because I misspelled my title on an essay I needed to turn into class. And I actually really hope I would cry if my dog died. If I had a dog. (I really really want a dog.)

So maybe all I’m saying is that I don’t know if the people who are hurting never perpetuate negative mindsets about themselves. But that doesn’t have to be paralyzing, I hope, and it doesn’t mitigate my responsibility as someone who is fairly privileged, either. For instance, as someone who doesn’t have any sort of obvious physical disability, I am in a position to better communicate with other people who might be inclined to dismiss someone with an obvious disability.

In which case it might not be so helpful to make myself or others feel shame for having bad thoughts. Instead it might be better to simply brush those thoughts to the side and to keep getting to know more people who seem different than me or who seem similar to me but actually have deep differences and reminding myself, often, that I can be a spokesperson for so many who don’t have a voice, and that not only are people like icebergs with way more beneath the surface but that my vision isn’t very good and that I probably can’t even see all the goodness and 3-D-ness and density on the surface.

To My OCD

Thrift Store Play Date

I LOVE thrift store play dates. Even when a really nice and well-meaning lady comes up to me while I sit with my baby in the toy aisle, hands me a four-page baby board book, looks at our pile of toys and says "you should consider this too. Trust me, I'm a teacher." (She probably doesn't know that our apartment is a fire hazard for all of the books inside.) 

Usually though, everyone just assumes that everyone else is doing the best they can for their children, and the more people come, the more it is clear that we're all in good company.

My Backpack

So, I *tried* packing my eight books and the twenty notebooks for my students into a backpack (not my normal one, but a hiking backpack). They fit, actually. But the weight of the backpack made me worry about herniating a disk or developing a case of scoliosis, so I went with the suitcase, which was great because then people thought I was a real hotshot who commuted to campus by plane flight or a lawyer hauling around briefs. (This picture is tardy. School started on Wednesday, and it is now Saturday night. Oh well.)

Hawaii

So, I like to tell myself that the expressions I make on the states have nothing to do with how I feel about them, and that's probably true, but I can't help but think that this is how I would end up feeling under the sun all day, especially because it would make me feel bad about what a party-pooper I am and how I should be able to make my body immune to all the feelings it gets when I spend time in the sun, because who doesn't want to spend time on glorious beaches seeing beautiful plants and animals and insects (that would be my favorite part, lest you think the last one sarcasm)?

Basically this how I feel being too much of a heliophobe.

Shoe Baskets for Everywhere

I’ve come to the conclusion that, if you struggle with cleanliness like I do, you might benefit from putting shoe baskets in all of your rooms.

When I say all of your rooms, I mean ALL of your rooms. There are the big ones, of course; the living room and family room and bedroom and playroom, but then there’s also the dining room and kitchen and bathroom and the hall where the vanity is and the laundry closet and the pantry. Yeah. Trust me. A shoe box in every room will really help you keep track of your shoes, because otherwise they will end up under the couch and in the tub and behind the pantry door and under the toilet.

This will also facilitate your inability to throw out shoes that you cannot wear due to

• toe/arch/heel/ankle pain
• a chronic lack of clean socks
• shoes falling apart
• stylish embarrassment
• missing both feet

If the possibility of diffusing shoe odor around the whole house worries you, rest assured that while laundry increases in aroma over time, shoes typically become more sedate in odor. And since you won’t actually be wearing the majority of your shoes (despite attempts at minimalist purges), they probably won’t actually smell.

:)

Interspecies Host Family Conflict

How to Overcome Differences and Work Around Communication Barriers

Are you struggling to overcome differences with your housemates? Do you get a sense that others don’t like you, even when they leave you alone?

If so, this is the class for you! In one sixty minute session with a trained professional, you will learn how to:

• Negotiate personal space boundaries that do not interfere with your host family’s culture
• Respect Host Family emotional boundaries
• Overcome linguistic differences by paying attention to intonation and body language
• Gain a deeper understanding of cultural superstitions and their sources
• Appreciate the sacrifices made by your host family on behalf of your stay

Just remember: it’s not your fault.

TESTIMONIALS

Who is William Hazlitt?

Bubbles

Most people actually like carbonation. Unfortunately, I don’t. (I wish I did; occasionally, I have spent hours swirling pop cans just to get some pain-free flavor). Fortunately for me, Michael doesn’t either.

Last night, we found the solution to all of our carbonation problems: blowing bubbles.

Basically, we wanted to have a date but were really exhausted, cause, y’know, we’re parents and feel like our bodies have just been on the wrong side of a carwash.

So we broke out our two favorite date night beverages--whole milk and martinelli’s apple cider--and commenced sending telepathic heart emoji’s at each other while sipping our drinks with dixie bendy straws.

But, being well trained by my toddler, and avoiding sipping too much cider at once (on account of the carbonation I don’t actually like), I started blowing bubbles in my cider, at which point Michael said, “I bet milk blows better bubbles.”

So we blew bubbles for the next forty seconds, and would have for much longer if it weren’t for the headache I was incurring from trying to compete with Michael’s milk bubbles. (Yeah. Milk bubbles annihilate cider bubbles.)

When I went back to sipping my cider, it was perfect. No cankerous carbonation pricking my tongue, just a very fine fizz.

That’s all. Happy Friday.

Dear Robot

Dear Robot,

Thank you for visiting The Earful Blog approximately 5,712 times in the past six days. I appreciate your dedicated attendance.

Unfortunately, however, your repeated clicks are producing the undesirable effect of placing both “Ode to Old Glasses” and “When You Look Like a Terrible Parent” above “A Bit About Michael” in terms of popularity. I like those posts, too. But do they really deserve to outshine any possible post about Michael, let alone one that highlights three stories about him?

I thought not.

As such, if you could kindly desist refreshing those pages several hundred times a night, we here at The Earful Blog would greatly appreciate it. Unless, of course, it is to restore “A Bit About Michael” to it’s proper place in the universe. (I hyperlinked it for you.)

Kindly,

Lizzie

P.S. No hard feelings are meant in the sending of this missive. In case you are feeling lonely or ignored, I have included a picture of a robot to be your friend. Maybe I will make more pictures of robots in the future. If you already have a robot friend, feel free to suggest a double date with me and Michael. :)

Ode to Old Glasses

A few weeks ago I found a page that looked roughly like this in one of my old journals.

Dearest Glasses,

Fortunately you were beat up enough that when Michael gave me a tour of his wallet while we walked around the bell tower courtyard when we started dating, I had something to show off. I’m sorry this was not enough for me to keep you.

Lest you think I didn’t love you, know that I made Michael choose the final replacement pair because, to me, none of them looked as good as you.

I would thank you for not being the pair that babies always steal and proceed to throw at my face, but I think that has less to do with you or my current pair than it has to do with my current life situation.

I can’t thank you enough for granting me vision of my now-husband, Toy Story 3, and the bone spurs on the endoscopy of my nostrils.

XOXO.

Lizzie

Somatoform Disorders: Doctor-Therapist Volleyball

Ohio

Behold the Ohio-est face I could come up with.

I remember staying at a home in Ohio where the towels were only red and black and the wallpaper was a watermark of the Ohio State logo. I also remember sitting in the backseat with my sister while getting a tour of the "horseshoe" (I think that's a stadium?) at Ohio state and chanting "M-I-C-H-I-G-A-N," also with my sister, and being told that we would be kicked out of the car if we continued.

Oh, also, at a July 4th parade, there was an ambulance pulling a stretcher with a Michigan fan dummy on it in between all the pretty floats.

Consider yourself warned.

A Very Short Motivational Post

Sometimes, I lie in my bed and look up, so I can see how clean five of the sides of my room are.

I recommend doing this as often as possible.

Expectations

One night when I was pregnant with our baby, Michael came home rejuvenated from playing racquetball, excited to see me, and eager to bring the In-and-Out he got with his racquetball partner for the two of us to eat.

He knew that when he left to play racquetball, I had just started taking a nap.

He knew that when I take naps, I tend to be out for hours, that when I am wiped out, it takes me a long time to bounce back.

He knew that I wouldn’t really have the energy or the desire to make Spaghetti squash, the meal we had agreed on for the night.

He would tell me, an hour or so later, that he envisioned walking inside the apartment and finding me asleep in bed. I would wake up when he came in the room, realize I hadn’t started the spaghetti squash, and start apologizing—then, he would tell me that it was all okay and that he had dinner taken care of.

Michael did not know that although I was very wiped out, about an hour before I thought he would be home from racquetball I got out of bed, started the squash in the oven, and stayed up to clean and get some school work done.

He didn’t know that I had anticipated he would be home at least an hour before he arrived, and awake to know the difference.

He didn’t know that I had avoided eating anything except for a hard-boiled egg before he got home so that we could eat a full meal together. He had no idea that I had made a special pepperoni pasta sauce he favors. And he didn’t know that the only reason I had enough motivation to get out of bed and do all of that was because I knew it would be hard for him to wait another hour or more for dinner after playing racquetball.

Michael was ecstatic when he came home to me crying at the table with dinner ready. He was excited and happy because he was envisioning a moment where he could surprise me in just the perfect way. He was even so prepared for his vision that, having no keys, he rang the door bell right after knocking, something I don’t remember him ever doing and something he would only do if he suspected me asleep. And when he saw me there, crying, he was devastated—and although I was upset at him, he was far more upset at himself.

In the moment it felt raw, and it hurt. But now, I think of it and feel a sort of exhilaration that Michael and I could put so much into something for the other, and have it flop hard. I feel proud that we messed up so badly despite being well-meaning, and that messing up is part of our story. I feel that our friendship is alive, with all the hurts that can entail.

But the real point isn’t that couples need to communicate expectations so that hurts don’t happen. Rather, it’s that in marriage, those kinds of hurts will happen. A spouse will inevitably feel one inch tall sometimes, or feel hurt or neglected, or feel disappointed, or feel confused. Even when both partners are doing their very best and acting with their heart wholly given to their spouse and their marriage, hurts will happen. Even when the last thing either spouse wanted was to ruin the other’s night or make them feel small and faulty, that can happen. And, as far as setting expectations is concerned—expecting that makes all the difference.

Texas

Sorry Texas. You're a hard state to work with.

But really, everyone I know from Texas is pretty wonderful. Granted, that's like three people. But I've also heard about a waste-free grocery store in Texas, which is amazing, and I love the journal Iron Horse.

Life of a Slow Driver #1: Construction Zone

If I slow down to fifty, cars zoom past.

If I speed up I will get a double fine or maul some poor construction worker.

If I stay slow cars will keep honking at me and drivers will keep flipping me off and someone might rear end me.

Conclusion: don’t drive ever again.

When You Look Like a Terrible Parent

I’m very glad that I don’t know how often I look as though I am being a terrible parent even when I’m not, because I think the social anxiety would kill me.

A few weeks ago I went to visit my brother and sister-in-law.

We were having breakfast.

In the course of this, my brother burst out “Mean Mama!”

I thought, perhaps, he was making a joke. Like, “Life is just so hard, having to eat toast for breakfast!”

He continued. “I saw that!”

He looked at my child. “Mama’s being mean, huh!”

At this point, I decided to give up the cool charade I try to present when I think people are making suave jokes that I should be getting.

I looked up. “What?”

My brother continued to address my child. “Mama is teasing you, huh? She keeps offering you food and then taking it away!”
“Umm, no,” I said, “I keep offering but this kiddo keeps on dodging my hand. So then I eat it.”

“Oh.” My brother stood there for a few seconds.

“Watch: Let’s try toast… no success. Now let’s try a bit of rice crispy… easy.”

I think he got it, but it was still a little awkward.

However, it could have been a much worse misunderstanding.

I would know.

Like on the day when I took my baby to campus in the middle of the snow.

It was blizzarding, so I decided the safest method to transport my baby was via a carseat strapped in a stroller. I had brought a snowsuit for my baby, but it wasn’t going to fit in the stroller, so I laid it on top of my baby as an extra blanket.

It looked vaguely like this:

I remember walking through the torrents of snow, in a very elated mood, alternating between cooing at my baby and looking at the snow and the other students around me. I definitely noticed that many students were giving me sidelong stares, some with more alarm than others, but I chalked it up to the fact that I was strollering my baby in the snow. Personally, I wasn’t worried; my baby was bundled up well and had the shelter of the car seat umbrella.

Eventually I made it to the right building and up four floors to my Professor’s office, where I knocked.

He opened.

“Come on in,” he said.

He paused.

“That looks dangerous.”

He pointed at the stroller.

I gave him a confused expression as I took the snow suit off of my baby and began to unbuckle the car seat.

“Oh! I thought that was the baby,” he said, pointing to the snowsuit.

It was a good reminder for me in seeing other parents doing things that seem a little crazy. Things aren’t always as they seem.

It Gets Better (especially when you are at the beck and call of your brand new offspring)

Imagine walking into a room where a women is in labor. She is screaming and sobbing and shaking. You raise your eyebrows and say, "you know, it's just gonna get harder," and then walk out. Perhaps that would have been the better comic, but I'll leave it to your imagination.

It's absurd, and yet, if you are a new mom or dad, you might just have had an interaction like this. Like, fifty times. (Or if you're pregnant, which may well be harder than the insane demands of being a new parent).

If you are anything like me, this is one of the most soul crushing things you hear, and sometimes you just want someone to tell you that no, you aren’t crazy--caring for a newborn is a *ridiculous* amount of work, and eventually it will won't be so hard.

So let me tell you. It DOES get easier. Unless you have the easiest baby on the block and have been bestowed with superpowers, or, in the other direction, unless you have a highly medically demanding child (and even often then, I have heard), it gets better.

Babies are precious and magical and somehow have the telepathic ability that enables them to know exactly when you were about to eat dinner or use the restroom or watch a show and derail your plans, and sometimes you’ll probably be able to feel that awesomeness, but sometimes you absolutely won’t feel that way because you will be just so, so tired. And, as my dad says, some things will get harder. But many things will get easier.

Utah

Utah is possibly most infamous for its alternating hot flashes and cold sweats. Possibly it is experiencing menopause. In any case, the poor state is continually enduring the verbal abuse of its citizens because of this unfortunate condition. Any kind words and well wishes would be greatly appreciated.

A Bit About Michael

Besides the fact that Michael practices law, is the chief stroller manager in our household, plays songs from The Secret Garden as well as devotional hymns on the piano, and majored in math and economics, here's what you need to know about Michael.

First: Racquetball.

Michael has probably played racquetball more times than you have seen a Progressive commercial.

When Michael has low blood sugar or makes a mistake at work, he wants to play racquetball. If he won the lottery, he would want to celebrate with racquetball.

When Michael thinks about Fatherhood experiences he is excited about, he thinks about going to Disneyland and playing racquetball.

If Michael planned the wedding receptions of his children, they might just happen in a racquetball court.

Second: The Addiction.

I remember vividly an early date with Michael.

We were watching A Beautiful Mind.

About halfway though, Michael paused the movie.

He turned at me, averting his eyes, and said, “you should know… I have an addiction.”

As someone who had spent hours sitting in addiction recovery meetings in my efforts to help a woman I knew overcome her addiction, and having seen really harmful effects of addictions in the lives of many I knew, I have to admit that this really worried me. For a moment, I froze.

He looked up at me, and said, “I’m addicted to chocolate milk.”

He still is.

Third: The Tree.

In Michael’s Junior year of college, he prepared for his roommates to move in by acquiring a potted tree from a neighboring apartment and kept it on the left side of the television in his apartment.

Michael watered the tree at least every week, and sometimes more, for two months. Unfortunately, this particular tree likely did not benefit from Michael’s diligence, as it was fake.

Now, you know more about Michael than his parents. (At least for a few minutes. We’ve never told them about his chocolate milk addiction, though we think they know.)

Baby Snot Mustaches: A Catalog

In your time as a gainfully unemployed wardrobe and grooming manager for minors at their earliest stages of development, you will come across many confusing fashion statements.

However, amid the drool ties and pasta bowl hats and bubble beards and milk mustaches, nothing beats snot mustaches when it comes to variety and versatility, as these can come in all shapes, sizes and textures, and at any day or hour of the year.

The handlebar mustache leads the way in baby fashion as the primary staple. While other mustaches may have a short lifespan or take time to accumulate, this one is like a phoenix, rising again and again from the ashes.

You may find yourself seeing this when your baby is towards the end of a cold and just starting to have softer nasal discharge.

This particular configuration is also more likely to happen if you baby is a fan of licking their mucous off of their face or pulling at their stuffy noses, thereby dragging snot down along their upper lip and the corners of their cheeks.

The Charlie Chaplin 'stache may not present itself regularly unless your baby is sleeping or within a few months old, as this mustache requires a period of undisturbed snot buildup.

However, any attempts to remove this delicately poised mustache will almost certainly not result in a clean face and instead simply morph into an alternative snot mustache.

Snot sideburns may be especially common if your baby is prone to ear infections and tugging on their ears.

This may cause alarm in parents who fear that their baby is draining brain fluid from their ear canal, but rest assured that this is almost surely the result of fluid that has migrated from below the nostrils.

Should you come across the everywhere mustache in your endeavors, we wish you the best of luck.

As your little one may respond to any approaches you make involving aspirators or wipes with impressive acrobatics and sonic-booming screams, we recommend enlisting as many tag-team supervisors as you can and stocking up on peanut butter or chicken pot pies for your sanity.