The work of care, toddler style

Harry and I went to Toys R Us yesterday while Jack napped and Ben spread grass seed and landscaping rocks with wild abandon (he also assembled an outdoor toybox and planted some planters and worked his magic with a hanging basket-- Ben loves outside work). Our mission? Buy Jack some birthday presents. A surprisingly difficult task because all Jack claims to want is "Zhuh Zhuh" (Buzz Lightyear), but we already have every Toy Story product know to (tiny, diapered) man.

Or so I thought. The release of the new Toy Story 3 movie Harry's birthday weekend means that you can find Buzz and Woody on just about anything from sprinklers to lawn bowling to footstools to bike helmets. Phew!

Harry wanted to come with me because he was dying to pick out this for Jack:

It's Baby Alive! The doll who shits herself! Score! On our walk yesterday morning, Harry (crammed next to jack in the stroller) asked Jack confidentially (everything sounds confidential when your mouth is 3 inches from someone's ear, but that's how they ride side-by-side) "Do you want Baby Alive for your birthday?" Jack replied, "No. Just Zhuh Zhuh." harry said, "Too bad. You're getting one." Okay then.

Ben did some online shopping at work the other day, but instead of buying the stuff, he printed out his list, and Harry and I took it to the store like happy little elves. We were having a fantastic time until we came to this:

A Just Like Home cleaning trolley. Harry's classroom has a similar toy, and Jack LOVES to play with it, pulling the broom from its hole and pretending to spray toxic household chemicals on surfaces. We knew he'd like it, so that wasn't my issue.

My problem was the box.

The box featured a little girl on her hands and knees scrubbing a kitchen floor with the cute, primary-colored scrubbing brush from the trolley. "All you need to help Mommy clean" said a bright caption over her head.

Help MOMMY clean? All YOU (a little girl, a tiny supplicant) need to help MOMMY clean? Where the fuck is daddy?? Where's the little boy in Cinderella pose?

At this point, my eyeballs popped out of my head and that cartoon "a-WOO-ga" noise played.

In line to buy the damn thing, I pointed that caption out to Harry, and we talked about how silly it was. "Daddies clean," Harry laughed. The cashier, a super stoned college kid, said, "I saw that the other day and thought how sexist it was."

"I know!" I squeaked. "But I'm buying it for my son." We both laughed a little.

The Just Like Home cleaning trolley is not like OUR home, where the little ones are boys, where mommy is just as likely to be straightening or folding or washing or caring as daddy is, where balance is something we all do together, where both of us work and both of juggle and both of us do drop-offs and pick-ups and tuck ins and clean ups. When Harry and Jack play with dolls and stuffed toys, they call themselves Daddy when they do the work of care. When Jack plays like he is going out to work, he dons heels and a purse and sunglasses and a grabs his phone before telling us "Bye."

(I know it sounds like I am advocating embracing a new set of stereotypes here, but I'm not. I think kids should respect the work that BOTH parents do and that this work should be genderless. Daddies can clean. Mommies can work. Daddies can work. Mommies can clean. Parents can do BOTH KINDS-- all kinds-- of work. Even when one parent works full time and one stays home full time, BOTH parents do care work.Why have toy retailers missed this simple fact?)

Is the Just Like Home trolley like any real home? Are there places were the work of care is only female? Where NO man or boy cares for another member of the household ever? Why is this the message we want to send to our children? That only girls and mommies scrub on their hands and knees while boys play fireman or super hero or build whole worlds with tiny blocks and practice being masters of the universe?

From the time they are Jack's age, we teach our girls to care and clean and cook. To wipe plastic asses and serve plastic food and make sure our dolls stay the neatest and look the prettiest. I am doing my level best to teach my BOYS these skills, too. Because who, after all, is going to be caring for me in my old age? I want them to learn that being a daddy is the most important job there is, and I want them to see all the work of care that their own daddy does so that these chores will be natural when they have their own kids and their own floors to mop. I want them to think about flexing their schedules at the office to coach t-ball or making sure that they always attend parent night at school. I want them to grow up understanding that caring for your children and your family is the most important thing you do and everything else comes second. Care work is not work that girls and mommies do. It is work that we ALL do to make homes for each other.

For so long, we have focused on women entering the public sphere to act like men. As a result, we have stopped talking about the domestic work of care. But is largely still women's work-- all you have to do is walk through a toy store to understand how true this is in black and white. Or pink and blue. For our world to change, for the particpation of women in the workforce to leave that space transformed, for us to re-imagine the ideal worker as a gendered, embodied human begin with family ties and commitments outside the office, we need to turn our attention back to the private realm and focus on men's equal participation in it.

This work starts early.

Jack

Have I told you that Jack calls me Mommy? Well, he does. I enjoyed years of Mama from first Harry and then Jack, but in the last week, Harry made the switch from Mama and Dada to Mommy and Daddy. Ever the worshiper of his brother, Jack followed suit, and just like that, Mama is gone.

Jack was quiet for so long, he'd only really been saying Mama for 6 months. Now, he says all of our names: Mommy, Daddy, and Harr-eee. And his own name, Me.

He turns 2 next Friday, and we'll celebrate with cupcakes for breakfast and a playground picnic and our regular Little Gym class and a mound of presents that Harry will surely steal and possibly break.


When Jack was 4 weeks old, he started crying and didn't stop for two months.

I don't remember those 8 weeks, just a few stolen moments. Coming down from the shower and finding Ben and Jack both asleep on the couch, one worn out from running laps around the living room with a squalling baby, the other from squalling. Taking the boys to the park and watching people glare at me while Jack screamed and Harry played. Once Jack erupted at the end of my hair cut, and I left him screaming in his carseat while my stylist finished my bangs because I knew if I picked him up, he'd cry in my face.

One day, he stopped crying and lived happily ever after.

He calls all blankets "yellow" because that's the name (and color) of Harry's favorite blanket. He still loves Bebe and takes her with him everywhere. He does everything Diego tells him to, and he calls himself big boy when he uses the potty. He can tell you that he is going to be two (dew), and he can hold up approximately 2 fingers-- sometimes more, sometimes less. In the morning if I am at the sink doing my hair or makeup, he climbs into my bed and smacks the pillow next to him telling me, "Mommy. Pillow. Snuggle. Me." He gives loud, wet kisses, and he likes to drink dirty bathwater.

When he was a baby, we called him Squishy because, well, look at him:

Now he's Monkey Jack or Jack o'Monster because his missions are to scale and destroy everything he sees.

What's really great about him though, is that he saves me from my own writerly bad instincts. I can't say something trite and flat like "everything about him is sweet" because he has really bad breath in the morning, and he bites when he's angry.

Thanks, Jack. I can't imagine my life without you.

Magic of the payground picnic

I think we may get to move the big wheels out of the living room today, which, as you might imagine, makes me giddy. It snowed here yesterday-- snowed-- but today is lovely and 60-ish and says "playground picnic" to me. Thank goodness because I am getting sick of cleaning up lunch.

Playground picnic is my one warm-weather trick that never gets old for the kids. Sure, there's lunch on our minuscule deck, lunch in their blow-up playhouse, and lunch on a picnic blanket on the rug, but playground picnic? Kicks all those other nontraditional eating arrangement's asses.

First, there's the playground-- it has tire pieces instead of pebbles or gravel, climbing structures safe enough for Jack and fun enough for Harry, and it's surrounded by a fence. Almost NO supervision required. The only (messy) thing is there's a sandbox, but we just make sure to shake out our shoes, and we're golden.

Then, there's the picnic-- they'll eat anything in a lunchbox or take-out container, and I don't care if they make a big spilly mess or knock it all over the ground. Heaven is a playground picnic.

We just discovered the magic last summer, and we've been taking advantage ever since.

Timely

It's the weirdest thing. I haven't had time to blog.

I know, you're totally shocked too, right? I mean, I found time to blog when I was a brand new mom who didn't know what I was doing AT ALL. I found time to blog when I was pregnant with Jack and totally exhausted and deathly ill over Christmas. I found time to blog when I thought I was in labor and then in the hospital the day I gave birth. I found time to blog waiting for my dissertation defense and right after it.

Not to mention, you know, the ENTIRE time I researched, wrote, and revised my dissertation.

But now? Now that I have everything I have ever wanted and a lot less stress? Can't find a spare second more than 1.6 times a week.

The kids have been really cute this week, but you wouldn't know that because I haven't had any time to take pictures of them.

We had SO MUCH FUN over spring break that I almost quit my job. For the first time since I had kids, I was completely serious about staying home full time. It was the plan, in fact.

Then I got all engaged at work again. I am working on 2 essays right now, planning 2 new classes, and loving every second I spend in my office. Alone. With hot, hot coffee, listening to my iPod and banging on my keyboard with 2 frantic fingers.

This right here? Is cutting into my sit on the couch and stare at the talking box with my mouth open time, so I gotta get back to it. See what I am talking about with the no time?

AFA! BUST! DTFR! (don't you love speech acronyms? I do!!)

Misty pointed out that this month is poetry month-- NaPoWriMo or something like that. (Except actually not like that because that's ugly and poets want to cut themselves when they see ugly language unless they're trying to evoke ugly, like, you know, when they are writing about cutting themselves.)

I want to try my hand at poetry this month, but I realized it had been 10 years since I have written creatively. 10 years of scholarly writing. 10 years which have done their best to suck the creativity from my body and replace it with previews, signposts, and end notes. Still, I have been carrying my journal with me everywhere, hoping the impulse to burst into poem will come upon me, but so far no muse, just shopping lists and to-do's that never seem to get crossed off, especially in April, which is academia's cruelest month for sure.

Something else it's been 10 years since I've done? AFA!!! The American Forensic Association's National Individual Events Tournament.

AFA was in Eau Claire, WI this year, so Ben and I packed up the boys and went up to judge a few rounds and let our kids frolic in clouds of second-hand smoke (because almost every speech competitor and judge STILL SMOKES)

Harry was thrilled to be going on a trip and staying in a hotel, the skeezier the better. Which is good because we stayed at the same hotel as Bradley, thinking that because we had adjoining rooms, we could put the kids to bed in their room and maybe have a few drinks in our room. But we were exhausted. And the hotel was a total shithole.

Harry and Jack and a giant gas station mouse: (a gas station that was so dirty, I think we would have been better off not washing our hands because the sink! Oh my god.)

Our gorgeous room with courtyard dumpster views: (courtyard dumpster views not pictured, but how bout that wallpaper?)

Ben chillaxin with some wine. (Note, Harry's favorite thing about the trip was the flowered hotel bedspread. I didn't tell him about all the different kind of DNA on those bed spreads. Even he was a little grossed out by the not-ours booger on the inside of the (cloth) shower curtain though.)

Every time it was my turn to watch the kids while Ben judged, I stuffed them with shitty food and then dumped them on him at the peak of their sugar highs. MOTY.

We also played ball

Harry was relieved that the E.Bunny found him at his hotel.

So was Jack.

We just frolicked and flew kites for 3 days while Bradley won the tournament!!



Here's what super trusty Wikipedia has to say about the Bradley Speech Team:

Bradley University boasts the nation's most prolific college forensics team, with their American Forensics Association Championship winning streak from 1980 through 2000 only broken in 1994 and 1995.[8][9] Bradley's forensics team hosts the nation's oldest intercollegiate competition, known as the L.E. Norton Invitational. The tournament is named after former forensics director L.E. Norton. The team also hosts an annual tournament for high school speech teams, known as the George Armstrong Invitational. The Speech Team has become the most successful intercollegiate team in history.
Since 1979, Bradley University has had one hundred and fifteen individual national champions.[clarification needed] No other team has attained as many individual national champions. Since 1980, Bradley has won nationals thirty-three times. This record of success is unmatched by any other college forensics team in the United States.

This was the first time the team won AFA since 2000. Ben and I were both on the team way back then, so we wanted to come back and watch them reclaim their title. Because we are huge dorks.

Comfortingly, we still knew tons of people, and all the boys still carried briefcases even though the business world has moved from attaches to messenger bags in the past 10 years. It was a total time warp from start to finish, and we LOVED it.

Speech friends, start packing your bags for NEXT YEAR'S NFA in Bloomington, IL.

Here's Ben and Jack snuggling this morning. Ben always gets up when his alarm goes off, but sometimes he only moves (with blankets) from the bed to the floor)

Harry and jack were beyond relieved that the E.Bunny also came to their house, with considerably more loot. Like these Big Wheels. If it ever stops raining, we're going to test them out outside even.

Tag! I'm it!

Corinne from Trains, Tutus, and Teatime tagged me for a meme. I'm supposed to show you my bag and then show you its contents.

I hope this doesn't gross you out or make you think I am a nasty hoarder. But when it comes to my bags and closets and drawers and under bed spaces, I am a gross nasty hoarder. Seriously. I had to spread a towel on the floor before I dumped the bag because that's how gross I am where no one can (usually) see me.

Here's the bag, a Vera Bradley Vera in Purple Punch:


Also, this is my 5th Vera bag and I am hooked. They're cute (ish), huge but still light, washable, and they can take a beating and still look okay. I am also hooked on the matching accessories. But totally old lady. When you see someone carrying a Vera, you know they wear ginormous granny panties. Thats why I like them-- because I defy stereotypes.

Okay, I warned you. Here's the gross crap inside:

The carnival tickets and saline nose drops are my favorites, followed closely by the random Buzz Lightyear and stray army guys.

I have lots of reading material-- a Parenting magazine, a book I am reviewing for a journal (that would actually be right up Becca and Kim's alley because it is about women and the rhetoric of science and is fascinating), Up in the Air which I kind of hate but have been reading at the gym, and 16 student papers from my rhetoric of reproductive rights class.

My hot pink planner and hot pink leather notebook for when I want to be taken super duper seriously at meetings.

There's a cute little bag of lip glosses that may not kill me and also safe-ish lipstick and Badger Balm hand cream.

I also have some super toxic scented alcohol hand sanitizers and lotions, an odd assortment of rubber bands and bobby pins, an extra Tom's of Maine deodorant stick (because that shit doesn't last all day, even though it claims to), and a little travel toothbrush and toothpaste.

I have snacks-- a ZBar and a no-sugar added Trader Joe's fruit leather for the kids and a Tootsie Pop and Altoids gum for me.

And, of course, I have electronics: my iPhone, my iPod Nano (which used to be Ben's but I took it because I thought I lost my iPod Classic, but I actually didn't because I found it today in the console of my car, but I like the Nano anyway, and Ben named it Valerie, which is not too surprising because his external hard drive is named Colleen), and my camera.

Oh! And diapers. One diaper, actually. That's kind of dirty from assorted bottom-of-the-bag crumbs.

I am tagging every single Pretty from All Kinds of Pretty. I am excited to see what's in your bags, my friends! (Corinne showed hershere.)

Here's the list:

Amy
Becca
Courtney
Gina
Jamie
Kate
Kim
Livie
Maegan
Misty
Nicole
Sarah
Stephanie
Stephenie
Tanya
Valerie
Virginia

Check All Kinds of Pretty for glimpses inside more bags!

Even though Jack's face says otherwise, we really are having fun this week

Here are Harry and Jack looking contemplative at the zoo. Perhaps they are wondering why we go to the zoo everyday? Beause we CAN.


Nothing captivates kids at our zoo like the otters. You can tell when the otters are out and swimming by the squeals of happy children pressed up against the glass yelling, "Here he comes!" or "He's swimming right toward me!" or "EEEEEEHHHHH!" Seriously, it's the loudest exhibit at the zoo.

Scariest? The tiger. He prowls back and forth all day and has worn a worried path into his tiny little habitat. He worries me, this bored hungry tiger, staring all day at the tapirs and the rhinos, both of whom have signs in front of their cages that depict them being eaten by tigers in the wild, which has to screw ith the big cat's dysfunctional mind.

Anywho, otters

They also never get bored sticking their faces in the polar bear cut-out


And I NEVER take pictures of the animals, (because those pictures are no fun to leaf through in an album) but the polar bear was so fluffy and snuggly yesterday, I couldn't resist. Don't you just want to curl up next to him or drink a bottle of Coke with him or something?

(We had to see the polar bear 3 separate times because Jack would not stop screaming BEAR! He also just sort of wandered away from me toward the bear until I brought the whole screaming stroller (because Harry wanted to see the bison and the badger and ONLY the bison and the badger) back to the bear.)

In other spring news, we made our first post-dinner Dairy Queen pilgrimage of 2010. Yay!

I love how far off the ground his little feet dangle. (Also plaid crocs sans socks-- KLASSY)

We both look completely vacant behind the eyes.

Jack was like a puppy making rounds of the table for bites (he would actually prefer a non-dipped cone, the little crazy)

Dude! Is there anything more fun that cement planters?

NO!

When we got home, Jack had to work off a bit of a sugar high...



Harry is not pictured because he was throwing the mother of all tantrums about his water squirter-- he wanted the green one but could only find the orange one. Then when it was time to go in, his tears and flails began anew because he realized he wasted all his playing time crying about his water squirter. Then after bath, he couldn't find the cape that goes to his SuperMan pajamas, and you can fill in the rest of the story.

Happy April Fool's Day! Hope you trick the hell out of your babies. Silly babies-- so easy to trick.