Pumpkin Bread From a Pumpkin and Why Grad Students Should Have Babies

Yesterday, my wonderful, fabulous department had a colloquium on balancing family and work, and it was great, full of both good policy information and terrific human interest stories. I was so into listening that I forgot that I said I would maybe say something about being a graduate student parent, so when I did stand up and blurt some crap out it was all random.

But what I really meant to say was that I love my life. I love teaching classes in my specialty. I love assistant directing a large public speaking class. I love writing my Planned Parenthood book.

And I love being a young hands-on mom to my fantastic kids.

Having kids in grad school was a great decision for me. Here's why:

1. Healthcare: At my university TAs with families pay $35 a month for healthcare, which includes NO COPAYS ever, free dental and vision, and $5 prescriptions. I had 2 kids for FREE. ANd all of their sick and well-baby visits? FREE. (Now that I am a faculty associate, I pay $65 a month for the same coverage. Still ridiculously awesome).

2. Babysitting: Our wonderful nanny was a former student of mine and though we could never take advantage of them because of Ben's non-grad student salary, the University has low-cost daycare options for students, and the campus women's center provide 4 free hours of babysitting a week to student families.

3. Time: Because grad students make carny wages, I never felt bad about flexing my time to be with my kids as close to full time as I possibly could.

4. Discipline: My babies grew up alongside my dissertation, and I became a very efficient and dedicated writer. I had no time to wait for my muse to strike. Instead, I had a set writing schedule dictated by nap hours, Ben's work schedule, and my babysitter's availability. I learned how to write everyday, as part of a careful routine, and this is invaluable to me now, as I juggle a book into my mix.

5. Partnership: Both Ben and I climbed our corporate ladders while balancing kids and careers. As we entered the jobs we hope to have for a long time, we came to them with good habits already formed, expecting to flex our hours together to spend the most time with Harry and Jack, helping each other out on our late nights and neatly dividing our household tasks. As our professional responsibilities grow, they do so within the boundaries we have carved for them-- we're never in danger of our jobs sucking away our home lives because we've grown with the need to juggle.

6. Potential: I am not on the tenure track, and I don't plan to be in the next 6 years. I plan to keep working the job I love and have more babies. The great thing? Is that I also plan to write books and publish essays and I know that the TT will still be there when my kids rely a little less on my physical presence.

In other words, having babies in grad school-- I had a 1 year old and a 3 year old when I finally got my diploma-- has allowed me to have my cake and eat it too.

And today?

That cake was pumpkin, with chocolate chips. I used this recipe, only instead of canned pumpkin, the boys and I pureed our own. We also added a large bag of chocolate chips (well, most of it. We had to, you know, test them first). And! Bonus! We toasted some pumpkin seeds, too!

Harry and Jack were really excited to use this pumpkin they lovingly picked out at the grocery store on Sunday. Jack couldn't even wait for me to wipe off his cream cheese mustache.

Once I hacked it apart, Harry dove in up to his elbows in pumpkin guts, and Jack hung back a bit.

Harry and I had harvested all the seeds and scraped off all the pulp before Jack reached one finger toward the shell.

After I cooked the pumpkin and sliced off all the meat, there was a minor blender mishap

But really, it didn't take long to go from giant pumpkin to neat little bowl of puree

and colander of seeds.

Also a huge freaking mess.

The bread was supposed to cook in 30 minutes, but it actually took 90. That's okay because it's amazing.

So are the muffins, which I made on the fly when I realized I only had one loaf pan and enough batter for 2 loaves of bread.

The seeds are fab, too.

My helpers lost interest along the way



We had a great day-- the gym, the library, the grocery store, some serious baking. Jack crapped his room (yes, you read that right), and everybody got crabby around 4:45, but that's par for the course around here. Excuse me. I've got to go get some more chocolate chip pumpkin deliciousness.

Whine tasting

So, I spent all summer thinking that I could not wait for the fall when I'd have a schedule and these buckets of unmarked time would be used up. I thought I'd want to kick the time buckets because all the the kids and I did all summer was bitch at each other and swim and destroy the house (them) and clean it up again (me).

But now I have a schedule and lots and lots and lots of things to do besides clean the house, and I am already dreaming of winter break.

While I cannot WAIT until tomorrow night because it is the season finale of Big Brother, I am not one to wish my life away. Instead of pining for break, I need to live in this busy fall moment, but what am I doing? Am I working on my book? No. I am seriously contemplating SAH full time.

Because Jack cried at pick up last night at school when his friends went home and he went to another classroom for after-school care.

Because he cried again this morning at drop off, and I almost said screw it and scooped him up and went home. Instead, I hid behind a glass brick wall (note: kind of a shitty hiding place) and watching him walk to the playground holding his teacher's hand and crying, "Mooooooommy." He even looked at my car in the parking lot when he wen out the door.

The thing is? Even if today were an at home day for me, I would have made him stay at school because, ultimately, I know that he'll stop crying right away and have a fun day (I drove by the playground on my way to work, and he was happily chucking sand on a little girl). So why do I feel bad for going to work?

Where is this guilt coming from? I stay home 2 full work days a week. What's my problem? I love my job. I am proud of my degree. I often lose my patience when I home with the boys all day. Why am I incapable of living in this busy moment?

Sorry to be such a whining whiner. I'm just in a funk. Unsure of life choices I thought I was sure about. Happy to have the luxury of choice but kind of wishing my mind could be made up by external circumstance.

Hey-- I am writing a book-- something I have been doing for awhile now, but only recently have I been able to actually say that without feeling like an asshole. So. Progress?

Post-bath crazies

You'd think they'd be tired after a full day of playing their faces off. You'd be wrong.

Finding our religion

We left church last night to see this hot air balloon above the building, and Harry screamed, "Mama! Take a PICTURE!" Obviously, I listened.

We've been in the process of joining this particular church since the Easter before Harry was born when we attended a fascinating, cerebral Easter sermon. We signed up to be on the mailing list and have been getting the newsletter and emails and directory updates ever since. In 2006, though, the church launched a huge remodeling project, planning to double its current size. The construction efforts were complicated by the fact that Frank Lloyd Wright built the original building, a historical landmark, so the addition had to keep his design integrity.

We didn't attend servies during the remodeling project, but we did send Harry to nursery school there last year, and we talked about going. A lot. We just didn't know what to do with the kids-- did they go to Sunday school, to the nursery?

A few weeks ago, I got an email from one of Harry's nursery school friend's mom (Jewish with a Christian husband), who said they were taking the plunge and signing their son up for religious ed. classes on Saturday evenings and that they planned to take their toddlers (who are Jack's age) to the nursery and attend services themselves. Ben and I decided this was the perfect time to join. So we did.

We went last night, and we loved it-- me maybe a little more than Ben, who liked it but didn't feel as spiritual about the whole thing as I did. Jack played happily in the nursery with Pooh Bear. Harry liked his class and was joyfully reunited with his favorite playground.

It's a Unitarian Universalist congregation, so not Christian (but there is a Christian study group Ben could join) and not Jewish (though a reform congregation of about 200 does also worship in the space), but perfect for our blended family. Last night's service was about the spirituality of poetry and the ritual of language that exists beyond memory. It was amazing. All of the readings were from famous poetry and famous literary criticism of poetry-- lots of transcendentalists and scholars-- what's not to love?

Harry got to stay for the first 20 minutes of the service with all the other kids, and he loved the harpist and the hymns (which he sang loudly-- he said he was learning the words from the lady behind us). He even joined all the other kids at the pulpit's steps to listen to the minister tell a story about the power and connection of shared nursery rhymes and explain that a church was another family to take care of you.

It's very much about mindfulness and finding purpose and carving space for meditation, however you define it-- and those are the very things I worked on in therapy earlier this year. I loved it, and we all felt peaceful afterwards. We're excited, too, that Harry and Jack will believe in something bigger than Santa and the Easer Bunny, their current gods of consumption.

They just like the playground.

Ballet rant

Can I just tell you, I met the dumbest people at ballet the other day?

(Harry was totally awesome in class, by the way-- he totally remembered his skillz).

Now I get that my ballet experience is not the norm. It's "supposed" to be a bubbly pink princess tutu wrapped experience. I get that. But holy hell, we have never encountered anything like these women (outside of crazy internet message boards anyway).

Before class, I was shoving Harry's dance shoes on his fat little feet when I heard a DS-playing brother of one of the pink girls ask his mom, "Do BOYS take ballet?"

"No," she replied.

Harry looked up, shocked, one ballet slipper on, one one clutched in his hand. "Actually," I said, trying not to sound aggressive, "In professional troupes, half of the dancers are men."

"Huh," said the DS player's mom.

"Really?" asked a woman next to her.

"Oh! Like the Nutcracker!" said a third.

During class, they proceeded to have the stupidest conversation about gender stereotypes I have ever heard in my life (and no, they didn't use the phrase gender stereotype because I am sure they've never heard that before or stopped to question things like ballet class and play kitchens. Feck). The highlight? One mom saying that her niece is not into Disney princesses or anything pink, that she's JUST LIKE A BOY, and that there might be something wrong with her. OMFG.

I am never leaving campus again.

On a brighter note, Ben and I took Jack on a date last night, and it was awesome. He was adorable and well-behaved and so excited to be out with us. Jack and I started the evening at a reception for my department, and then we met Ben at his office. Then we walked downtown and ate a place with no kids' menus or plastic cups-- risky. We ended the evening at Toys R Us, where Jack picked out something for Harry, too. A picture perfect date. That I did't really take any pictures of. Except these.

Dude, you guys. The week got away from me.

It's Thursday?! Already?

Eff.

I worked from the moment I dropped the kids of at school at 8:00 this morning until 9:00 tonight, when I dragged my tired self in the door (sure, I stopped at the gym on my way home from the office, so it wasn't all work work and sure, I love my job and just sit around and think about stuff all day long, but still. Long day).

I should be guilty, I guess, that both kids were sleeping when I got home, but you know what? I am home with them all day long 4 out of 7 days a week, and this day? This totally grown up, serene day? Was really nice. (Probably because it's not the norm. believe me when tell you my 13-hour days are few and far between) (Although I did walk the heels off my shoes a little-- you know when you wear high heels too much and the little metal nail on the heel is exposed? Yep. They're really old shoes, and I was joyfully reunited with them when I cleaned out my closet, but I should have taken a little detour to the shoe repair. Oops. I made a really loud scrape-clack sound when I walked all day and then had the bright idea of putting that sticky gummy stuff you use to hang up posters over the nail to drown out the noise, but it didn't work, and I trailed a sticky string of refuse behind me for awhile.).


Seriously, I cannot get over these pumpkin hats.

Harry called Jack loco this morning, so I guess he's immersing himself in insults in his Spanish classroom.

This morning at drop off, Jack almost cried when I left. His friend Henry (whom he has been talking about since Tuesday when the kid apparently sobbed all day) started crying, and Jack's eyes filled with tears. "Oh no," he said. "Henny cry. Me sad."

Then his teacher announced a trip to the playground and everyone perked up.

Harry's teacher sends us pictures all day long, but the text of the email is in Spanish, so I have no clue what he's talking about. Here's Harry on his first day of school:

First day of school

I was nervous about drop-off. but you know what? It was great. Jack gave me a kiss and an extra squeeze around my neck and trotted into his classroom without a second look. I unloaded the enormous amount of shit I had to schlep into the building (nap bags, extra clothes, gym shoes, Pull-Ups, wipes, lunches, tiny back packs, etc) and took Harry to the minibathroom (so cute-- teeny stalls, twee toilets, low sinks, knee-high hand dryers-- I loved it so much I totally wanted to pee in there too. But that would have been awkward). The whole building smelled like the blueberry muffins the chef was whipping up for morning snack.

I paused outside Harry's classroom, nervous for him because his teacher greeted him and directed him to the sign-in book totally in Spanish. Which? It's a Spanish immersion classroom, so I get that he has to be, uh, immersed, but I was just worried about the little guy in a new room with new friends and new teachers in new building being talked to in a new language.

Then I went to work.

They were happy as little clams when I picked them up (and took them straight to the gym playroom while I squeezed in a quick workout-- MOTY), and when we came home to a spotless house that had been uninhabited for hours, I was totally enchanted with that reality. Usually I come home to happy kids, a happy babysitter, and total freaking chaos. Today, we were all happy, even me.

Jack claims to like nap best; Harry had class in the music studio and discovered his love of percussion. Both of them talked about their days (Jack told us that Henry cried two times and that his teacher's name is Ham Pam, and Harry seems to like a girl named Eleanor).

A good first day.

Harry was a major ham this mornig

He's so little

Harry is a total blur-- you think he was excited?


On the way to pick up Harry

Harry through his classroom door

Harrys self portrait outside his cubby. I kind of dig that he's going by Harrison this year.