everything is peachy

for those of you who are wondering.  

kitten's procedure went great.  they gave her a baby dose of versed to relax her beforehand which had her marveling at her amazing fingers.  when she woke up from the anesthesia about thirty minutes later she was VERY angry, but we took her home and got her fed and napped, and she was a much happier baby.  

in the past five days since then she's learned to clap, wave and say "bye-bye," climb down from the sofa backward and feet-down (as opposed to head-first), and she's repeated "ball" and "baby," and she's learned to use "uh-oh" in context (as she picks up a dvd and throws it on the  floor: "uh-oh").  she's had a bit of a headcold and fever so last night she slept with me, and i heard her murmuring "uh-oh" in her sleep.  too cute.

i have a LOT of unreturned phone calls right now, but i'm significantly stressed out over this office move so when i'm not working i'm pretty much huddled up on my sofa in the fetal position chanting "nooooooes."

just kidding.  but i have been laying very low lately as i try to sort out what direction my office and career is going, so if i've dodged your calls, i really apologize.  and thank you for all the birthday wishes.

kitten's ears

we are scheduled to have tubes put in kitten's ears tomorrow at 7:00 a.m.  it's a fifteen minute procedure, but we have to be there early to talk to the anesthesiologist, etc.  she is the first surgery of the day because she can't eat or drink anything after midnight.

of course i'm anxious about everything, especially the anesthesia, but i am certain that we are making the right decision.  her ears, even though they are not infected, are full of fluid and are causing her pain, pressure, and muffled hearing every day.  she pulls at her ears all day.

wish us luck.

Church: How I Go Without Getting Angry

a few weeks ago my mom copied an excerpt from a book she's been reading and gave it to me.  she periodically does things like that. 

it's been sitting on my desk, which i have been cleaning off, so i just read it for the first time.  it's nicely on point with other things i've been blogging about recently.  i have no idea what it means in the larger context of the book, but i like it.

***

from the novel 

Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirtuality

by Donald Miller

Chapter 12: "Church: How i Go Without Getting Angry"

It should be said I am an independent person.  I don't like institutionalized anything. I don't like corporations.  I am not saying institutions and corporations are wrong, or bad; I am only saying I don't like them.  Some people don't like classical music, some people don't like pizza, I don't like institutions.  My dislike might stem from a number of things, from the nonpersonal feel I get when I walk into a corporate office or the voice-mail system I encounter when I call my bank.  It might be the nonengaged look on every fast-food worker's face or the phone calls I receive in the middle of dinner asking me what long-distance carrier I use.  Those people never want to just talk; they always have an agenda.

My dislike for institutions is mostly a feeling, though, not something that can be explained.  there are upsides to institutions, of course.  Tradition, for example.  The corridors at Harvard, rich with history, thick with thought, the availability of good, hot Starbucks coffee at roughly thirty locations within five miles of my home.  And what about all those jobs?  Without the corporate machine, where would people work?  I suppose we need them.  The institutions.  The corporations.  But mostly I don't like them.  I don't have to like them either.  It's my right.

I don't like church, either, for the same reason.  Or I should say I didn't like church.  I like attending a Catholic service every once in a while, but I think that is because it feels different to me.  I grew up Baptist.  I like watching religious television every once in a while.  It's better than Comedy Central.  I want to study psychology so I can sit in front of religious television and figure out these people's problems.  For a while I was very fascinated with televangelists.  I couldn't afford a television ministry but I had a computer, so I would go into Christian chat rooms and try to heal people.  It was funny at first, but it got boring.

Some of my friends have left their churches and gone Greek Orthodox.  I think that sounds cool.  Greek Orthodox.  Unless you are Greek.  Then it sounds like that is where you are supposed to go, as though you are a conformist.  If I were Greek, I would never go to a Greek Orthodox church.  If I were Greek, I would go to a Baptist church.  Everybody there would think I was exotic and cool.

***

I go to a church now that I love.  I never thought I would say that about a church.  I never though I would love a church.  But I love this one.  It is called Imago-Dei, which means "Image of God" in Latin.  Latin is exotic and cool.

In the churches I used to go to, I felt like I didn't fit in.  I always felt like the adopted kid, as if there was "room at the table for me."  Do you know what I mean?  I was accepted but not understood.  There was room at the table for me, but I wasn't in the family.

It doesn't do any good to bash churches, so I am not making blanket statements against the church as a whole.  I have only been involved in a few churches, but I had the same tension with each of them; that's the only reason I bring it up.

***

Here are the things I didn't like about the churches I went to.  First: I felt like people were trying to sell me Jesus.  I was a salesman for a while, and we were taught that you are supposed to point out all the benefits of a product when you are selling it.  That is how I felt about some of the preachers I heard speak.  They were always pointing out the benefits of Christian faith.  That rubbed me wrong.  It's not that there aren't benefits, there are, but did they have to talk about spirituality like it's a vacuum cleaner.  I never felt like Jesus was a product.  I wanted Him to be a person.  Not only that, but they were always pointing out how great the specific church was.  The bulletin read like a brochure for Amway.  They were always saying how life-changing some conference was going to be.  Life-changing?  What does that mean?  It sounded very suspicious.  I wish they would just tell it to me straight rather than trying to sell me on everything.  I felt like I got bombarded with commercials all week and then went to church and got even more.

And yet another thing about the churches I went to: They seemed to be parrots for the Republican Party.  Do we have to tow the party line on every single issue?  Are the Republicans that perfect?  I just felt like, in order to be part of the family, I had to think George W. Bush was Jesus.  And I didn't.  I didn't think that Jesus really agreed with a lot of the policies of the Republican Party or for that matter the Democratic Party.  I felt like Jesus was a religious figure, not a political figure.  I heard my pastor say once, when there were only a few of us standing around, that he hated Bill Clinton.  I can understand not liking Clinton's policies, but I want my spirituality to rid me of hate, to give me reason for it.  I couldn't deal with that.  That is one of the main reasons I walked away.  I felt like, by going to this particular church, I was a pawn for the Republicans.  Meanwhile, the Republicans did not give a crap about the causes of Christ.

Only one more thing that bugged me, and then I will shut up about it.  War metaphor.  The churches I attended would embrace war metaphor.  They would talk about how we are in a battle, and I agreed with them, only they wouldn't clarify that we were battling poverty and hate and injustice and pride and the powers of darkness.  They left us thinking that our war was against liberals and homosexuals.  Their teaching would have me believe I was the good person in the world and the liberals were the bad people in the world.  Jesus taught that we are all bad and He is good, and He wants to rescue us because there is a war going on and we are hostages in that war.  The truth is we are supposed to love the hippies, the liberals, and even the Democrats, and that God wants us to think of them as more important than ourselves.  Anything short of this is not true to the teachings of Jesus.

...

buy it on  Amazon.com

"it doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who i remember he was."

-anne sexton

miss you, dad, and wish you were here to meet J

as we celebrate his fatherhood to our own little girl.

you'd love them both.

thing three

(post script - this is a colossally long post.  i apologize.  but once i started typing, my blood pressure went back up.)

as you all know, i looked long and hard to find a daycare at which i was comfortable leaving Kitten.  and for the last six months, it's been a blessing.  but recently the daycare has been undergoing some changes which affected Kitten's care in a way which rapidly rose to the level of unacceptable.

i firmly believe that finding a good daycare has nothing to do with the facility itself, or the toys, or the playground equipment, or how expensive it is, or how well-decorated.  and really, even the directors of the facility take a back seat to the most important thing: the teacher who is in the room with my daughter all day.

the original infant room teacher left the daycare about one month after Kitten started there.  i was upset about it.  the teacher who moved up into the lead teacher position, Miss J, was young and i was worried that she wouldn't be able to handle the chaos of an infant room.  

it took a few weeks, but Miss J really got things into shape.  i became very happy with the way the infant room was running.  Kitten became very bonded to Miss J, and it was apparent that she was getting really good care.  Miss J was there when i dropped Kitten off in the morning, and she was there when i picked her up.  continuity of care is so important for young children, so having the same teacher in the room all day was crucial to me.  Kitten was consistently happy, well fed, dry, and clean.  i could tell when i picked her up every day that things were going well - and Miss J and i got along perfectly.  Kitten was happy as a clam every single afternoon.

unfortunately, the daycare never put any real effort into finding a steady second teacher for the room to assist Miss J.  there were a couple of girls who were there part of the time that i really liked - and a couple more who i really didn't care for.

further, despite Miss J's efforts, there were some things about the infant room that really needed to be changed.  keep in mind this was a brand-new facility developing brand-new policies, so when "parent survey" time came around i sat down and took the time to write a long suggestion letter.  the letter resulted in a call from an attorney who worked for the off-site owner.  we had a very good and productive conversation--but none of the changes we discussed ever materialized.  for instance, i felt strongly that the infant room needed to adopt a "no shoes" policy, as it was the only facility i had ever visited that permitted shoes in the infant room.  daily sheets needed to be two-way so that parents filled out information in the morning, because i didn't feel like the information in my thirty-second verbal run-down (4oz bottle at 6am, don't give her any tylenol until after 9am, she had a fussy night and will need a longer nap, etc.) sufficiently made it to the caregivers.  stuff like that.  i even offered to have my sister (who is the infant teacher/director extraordinaire with a degree in early childhood education and all the certifications you could ask for) come in and consult for a day or two for FREE.  they wanted to - but never followed through.

Miss J was so great, though, that i got over it, even though i remained a little annoyed.

then, two weeks ago, Miss J was out for two days in a row.  the first day i did not recognize any of the women in the infant room when i dropped off Kitten, and when i picked her up i could tell that she was out of sorts.

the second day i again did not recognize any of the women in the infant room, and i swear to god something inside me told me to not leave her.  i ignored it but promised to pick her up extra early.  

when i got there at 3:00 p.m., i walked into the room to see her standing on the floor with her pacifier (she is not permitted to have a pacifier except at naptime), holding onto a chair, red-faced and distraught.  the room was complete chaos, an utter mess, babies crying everywhere.  i picked her up feeling like a HORRIBLE mother for having left her.  i walked across the room and picked her blanket up from the floor (why was it there?) and put it in her crib, which is next to her cubby.  i looked in her cubby and realized that BOTH of her bottles were completely dry - she had not been given a bottle ALL DAY.  i picked up her daily sheet and she had NO BOTTLES and NO DIAPER CHANGES written down for the ENTIRE DAY.  her diaper was soaked.  she was traumatized. i was LIVID.

one of the secondary teachers that i like, Miss K, had just come into the room after getting out of class (she's in college) and she was frantically running around the room doing damage control while the two strange women kind of lurked around not doing anything productive.  Miss K apologized profusely, but i know it wasn't her fault--she'd barely walked through the door herself.  Miss K told me that the strange women reported that Kitten was crying all day, every time they'd set her down.

PERHAPS BECAUSE SHE WAS STARVING, YOU DOLTS????

i left the daycare and took Kitten straight home.  she was hysterical by the time we pulled into the driveway.  she took a giant bottle, a container of bananas, and a double-size bowl of oatmeal before she would calm down.  i cried.

and then i called the director.  of course she apologized and promised to go to the infant room right away and straighten it out, but i didn't feel any better.  i cuddled with Kitten all evening, even after she was fed and happy and was squirming to be out of my arms.

i vowed that the next day, if Miss J wasn't back, i wasn't leaving Kitten there - and thank GOD she was.  we had a LONG talk and Kitten was super happy to see her teacher.  

that afternoon Miss J and i had another long talk, and she confided that she was putting in her notice that day because the administration was too chaotic and she couldn't get them to support her or to hire any consistent assistance for her.

AHHHHHH.

so i put in my notice, too, and made immediate arrangements for Kitten to start attending a home daycare in the fall, and to stay with my sister for the rest of the summer.

and THEN, the next day, the off-site director called me and begged me to reconsider.  apparently they had already decided to terminate the on-site directors and are planning huge changes to the center, but these things hadn't been made public to the employees or parents yet.

i feel badly because i am invested in this center, and i wanted to see it grow and succeed.  as ya'll know, i spent a TON of time choosing the center that felt right for Kitten.  and there are still many teachers there who i trust greatly - but unfortunately, none of them are in the infant room full-time.

what's more, Princess is attending summer camp there, to great success. she is happy with her teachers and has had wonderful consistency of care (like i said--it's all about the teachers in the room).

i spoke at length with the off-site attorney, and wavered for a few days.  ultimately i decided to go ahead and keep Kitten out of the center, for now.  she will continue with my sister for the rest of the summer, and Princess will continue in their summer camp as long as she's happy.  

and in the fall, i have promised to come back to the center to meet the new director and new infant teacher and see what changes they've made, and reconsider Kitten's placement.  it's entirely possible that the new staff will be wonderful - but i won't allow Kitten to be a guinea pig in the midst of all that change.

not to mention that i had to put down a $400 deposit at the home daycare toward Kitten's fall enrollment.  the home daycare is the same center that i originally almost placed Kitten in, but i didn't at the time because the home daycare closes at 5:00 p.m. sharp and i was worried that would be problematic - but now i know it's workable.  the home daycare has a WONDERFUL curriculum and is terribly organized and creative.  the woman has one employee and keeps mostly teacher's kids, which is why she closes so early.  it's clear that she's put a huge amount of time and effort into developing her program over the last 30 years.  she keeps only children up to 5 years old, and funnels them directly into the local pre-k program.  it's much more of a tiny little private school than a daycare, and i have high hopes that it will work for us.

but who knows? the risk of a home daycare is, of course, that there is only one person in charge, and if you and that one person don't get along, there's no one else to go to.  and the woman does seem quite, ahem, assertive--but i'm never going to fault a woman for that!

wish us luck.

RENT

in going back through all my old posts, i found this.

here, let me blow that up for you:

kara would say that you have to listen to RENT in music hell, and that i should be ashamed of myself for knowing all the words to the soundtrack. but i do, and i have tickets to it in march.

the comments for that post have been lost because that post was on my old site.  but i know for a fact that kara left a snarky comment.

and then on 09 june 2009 at 10:25 p.m., lo and behold, what is kara's FB status?

Kara G: the tango maureen (i take back everything i ever said, melissa!)

i'm going to label this post "being right about music."

they must often change, those who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.

-confucious

those of you who are my faithful blog readers will notice some changes going on around here.  my readership is increasing, which is uber cool - but also a skosh creepy.  we have little ones who are and will always be my first priority, so there's going to be some anonymousization of this blog.

HENCEFORTH the girls will be known as my stepdaughter "Princess" and my daughter "Kitten."  you might recognize these names from the 1950s television show "Father Knows Best"--and it still leaves room in our family for a little "Bud" if J has his way - but the odds seem overwhelming that we'll end up with a second "Kitten."  that's a long way away, though, so don't get your hopes up.

everyone else will be referred to in whatever way makes sense at the time.

capisce?