Maternity Pants, Fatigue, and Never Look at Your Butt in Your Sister-in-Law's Mirror

First published on October 25, 2008

Fatigue.

I'm not talking tired or exhausted or however I generally feel after carrying Jake up the stairs for the fifteenth time at the end of the day. I am talking about bone-crushing, crying-because-I'm-so-tired, unable-to-think fatigue. Have-your-thyroid-level-checked fatigue.

It is, perhaps, no coincidence that it hit me after an afternoon spent at a three-year-old's birthday party last Sunday.

Travels with Toddler (Low Country Edition)

First published on October 14, 2008

"Elmo!" Jake crowed the second he saw the portable DVD player set up in the back seat of the car. Plainly, he was ready for a driving trip, as long as we had Elmo's Big Outdoors at the ready.

As was I. After a year of living in the mountains, I was craving some beach time the way the work-at-home mommy me sometimes still craves a particularly stylin' and youthful outfit I spot on t.v. (because I don't go out anywhere that I might see stylish outfits on an actual person). I know I will live if I don't make it to the beach (or wear that outfit), but my soul cries out that I am slowly crushing it into a desiccated shell of its former self by not fulfilling this aching need. The former self that presumably lived on the beach and wore great clothes, though I can't recall any time in my life when I did either with any consistency.

But with the warm days waning, I grabbed my last chance for a lovely long weekend beach idyll with a trip to Hotwire and a score on a great deal at what was advertised as a four-star Marriott in Hilton Head.

Yom Kippur, Spirituality, and a Pair of Black Chuck Taylor Low Tops

First published October 9, 2008

It occurred to me, as Jake ate his lunch at Green Sage today, that having your child drop pieces of pork sausage in your lap may not be the most appropriate way to honor Yom Kippur.

Let the Comparisons Begin, or How Much Control Do I Really Have?

First published October 6, 2008

We had our anatomy-screen ultrasound last week, and, inevitably, the comparisons began.

"This is an active one," the technician commented, as she tried, unsuccessfully, to snap a picture of the wiggling baby's heart before it shifted out of view again.

I told her about the time Jake wouldn't wake up for his ultrasound. And about how everyone in my breastfeeding group used to refer to him as "Zen Jake" because of his propensity for staring wide-eyed at the screaming infants around him as he calmly digested his meals.

"Well, this one sure is going to be different," the tech promised.

Have I Run Out of Gas?

First published October 1, 2008

It's been a good ten days since my last post. Ten days of paid work and school holidays and all the other stuff that happens when you have a toddler and can't even manage to find the time to call your sister back when she leaves you a nice message saying she's considering volunteering to do some poll watching in North Carolina so she can visit you.

Could it be that I've just run out of gas? That I have finally hit the point where being the mother of a toddler preparing for a second run of maternity leave means I don't have the time to indulge in the things that give me a sense of self and purpose?

Nope. Nothing like that. Just busy.

Shouldn't My Sick Child Be Crying for His Mommy?

First published September 21, 2008

Mike and I had one of those glorious Asheville Saturdays yesterday. We took Jake to Plow Day at Warren Wilson College, a small school just outside of town with—as the Plow Day moniker would suggest—a working farm.

Yes, one year of living here, and I consider Plow Day at Warren Wilson College the height of family-friendly entertainment. And I say that with an honest lack of snarkiness or sarcasm.

Could Yoga Have Led Me to the Americans with Disabilities Act?

First published September 18, 2008

Yoga, I have always thought, saved me from the law.

I became a lawyer, in the narrative I have set up of my life, because I was blind to my heart.  It was the path my mind led me down, the safe, manageable world of knowledge and surface communication and clear organizing principles.

Sure, I told myself I went to law school to change the world.  Certainly not because my parents were begging me to do it.  But I also fully acknowledged, at the ripe old age of 24, that I would end up going to law school eventually, so why not do it while I was young?

I did, to my credit, fight the good fight.  Much of my first year was spent in tears as I tussled over the meaning of justice with other students who were plainly in the game to make six figures a year.  (We're talking the pre-dot-com '90's, when you had to actually work your way up to a six-figure salary at a big law firm.)  I sought refuge in the nascent Columbia Journal of Gender & Law, reasoning that an organization run on consensus must be a warm and welcoming haven, even if we were, as it turns out, publishing articles about law by people who practiced and taught law.  I jumped at the chance to work in the Fair Housing Clinic during my third year and ended up feeling alienated and discouraged at the thought that once someone needs to consult a lawyer, there's nothing much the lawyer can do to correct the harm she's already suffered.

In other words, the law broke my heart over and over again.