DC Metro Moms

Aging at the speed of time

"She's growing too fast." "I wish he would stay this way forever." "I can't believe how big she's getting!"

Do you ever think any of those things about your kids?

I never think those things.

I have a relative who always drops those cliches on my kids' heads. "They grow too fast," she always says. I always reply, "no they don't."

They grow just right. They grow a little every day. I've never understood the sentiment that wants to freeze them in time. It's selfish, isn't it? To preserve them in amber so that I can admire their dimpled elbows and funny pronunciations? I want them growing every day, because if they aren't, what horrible disease has befallen them?

Making the difficult decisions

Hi, my name is Robin. I have a five-person family and it's been 24 days since we washed any laundry at our house.

That's not a good beginning, is it? A few weeks ago our washing machine appeared to be messing with us. It's a front loader with a dryer stacked on top of it, and we need that configuration because that's what will fit in our laundry/cleaning supplies closet. So our cantankerous washer, it wasn't spinning the water out of the laundry. Then it would begin a load and stop midway through, leaving the clothing sitting in warm, soapy water. I could neither convince it to finish the load nor rescue the clothes to finish by hand without releasing a tidal wave onto our kitchen floor. Finally, it wouldn't begin a load at all. We thought it was a broken locking mechanism. We propped it shut all classy with a kitchen chair weighted down with my heaviest cookbooks. That worked for exactly two loads. Then it wouldn't operate at all.

My feet are having an identity crisis

Sometime in 2003 or 2004 I read that the average American woman's shoe size was an 8.5. I was several years out of graduate school and away from spending my days running up and down my hilly campus; I was several years into my sedentary career. I thought then, whatever my body issues are, at least I have perfectly average feet.

I wasn't yet pregnant.

And then, in 2005, I was...and immediately my feet grew.

Finding inspiration in your undergarments

Your interview is today and it's all you can think about as you awaken. It's for a big promotion at work, one you really, really want. You've watched that position sit vacant for over a year, hoping against hope that it would stay vacant until you met your time-in-grade eligibility requirements. Just two weeks after you were eligible, the hiring announcement was posted.

You were on maternity leave and your mind wasn't focused on the ins and outs of your place of employment. You prepared your application at home, hoping you weren't fuzzy on any details that would come easily to your peers who were actively engaging in work while you folded clean burp cloths and dirtied them again. You submitted your application and hoped it was good enough. You waited and tried not to be antsy, knowing the mysterious ways of the personnel office half a country a way would churn at their own pace.

Introvert, stepping out

I recently made a bold move. I joined a book club.

Okay, I haven't really joined, yet, so much as committed to joining. Although there is no real commitment, so it would really be more accurate to say I RSVPed in the affirmative to attend next month's meeting of an ongoing book club. Isn't that bold?

No? But what if I explained to you that I don't know anybody there? I know! It was very bold, indeed.

My kid has a problem with the Nuclear Security Summit (and she's taking it out on me)

So she detonated the nail polish box across the family room floor.

This morning began as so many mornings do: something invisible and unanticipated displeased Her Royal Terrible Twoness, and we had to diffuse a tantrum. Only today was extra special, because my husband left for work ridiculously early today to minimize his pain in the commuting mess that the rest of the world knows as the Nuclear Security Summit that is convening in DC today and tomorrow. (See the little map? See H Street? The lovely husband's office is right there on H Street.) I was the only bomb detonator on this morning's shift.

Her Royal TT does not care that 38 heads of state are convening in town today. Her Royal TT is angered that when she came downstairs and looked at me and said one withering word: Daddy!, I did not jump to deliver him to her. Instead I greeted her with the sorrowful news that he was already departed and I would have to suffice as pitiful substitute.

Learning to Read with Metro

My older daughter is four and on the cusp of knowing how to read. She can recognize and write all of her letters and identify them with the appropriate sounds. She just hasn't yet pieced together how to string those sounds into words. But if you ask her, she'll tell you she's already a reader.

I made the mistake of gently correcting her, once. I haven't really had the courage to do so again. "You're almost reading, love, but not quite." We were driving home together on New Hampshire Avenue.

YES, I CAN! she bellowed at me. See? Look! It's a Z2!

A route number lit up on the back of a stopped Metro bus is not quite the same as Charles Dickens or even Dr. Seuss, but yes, I suppose, she read it.

Even from the comfort of my own car public transit is causing me problems.

Confronting the breastmilk taboo

I'm on maternity leave right now, which means three things: I live in pajama pants, I watch way too much daytime TV, and I'm sustaining my son with my body. He's a breastmilk boy and I'm incredibly proud of that. He's the only of our three kids for whom I've been able to produce enough milk to avoid the siren song of Similac. And if I'm going to live this life wired in to DDD bras, the mammaries owe it to me to fulfill their biological function, don't you think?

It also means, let's go for full disclosure, that sometimes I'm a bit of a drippy mess. It gets everywhere, especially at the end of a pumping session. But the growing golden bags in the freezer fill me with a tangible sense of accomplishment. As I labeled another bag for storage last night my husband complimented the fruits of my labor, and how happy this will make the baby in the coming months. I tossed an offhanded remark back about how of course it'll make him happy - the stuff is sweet and delicious. The husband stopped what he was doing and looked at me with surprise: "you've tasted it?" I hadn't thought anything of it. Breastmilk gets all over me. It's been on my fingertips and the backs of my hands. Yeah, I've tasted it. (And if you've nursed or pumped, haven't you?)

Requiem for a label maker

First it jammed, but I was able to fix it. Then it jammed, but I was able to hack it. Then one day the lovely husband uttered the most distressing words to me: "I think the label maker is dead."

I do not weep for an electronic life cut short; our oldest child is 4 years old, so the little machine must have lived nearly 4 years itself. It was a respectable life span for a $29 impulse purchase. And yet, that impulse purchase changed our outlook on household organization. It changed our whole world.

On having a birth plan, and weather interference

My daughters playing in December's big snowstorm.

Have a birth plan, the books all say. This is my third pregnancy. Want to know my birth plan? Get to the hospital; give birth. You'd think it wouldn't be complicated. And yet, here I sit, 40+ weeks pregnant and the DC snowpocalypse is upon us.

It just got a little complicated.

The Montgomery County government is texting me that we're expecting 28" of snow by the end of the weekend. Stay off the roads. Prepare to shelter in place. Excellent advice, that, but my fetus doesn't know how to text just yet. During the last storm dubbed a 'snowpocalypse,' back in December, our neighborhood got about 20" of snow.  And we never got our street plowed. A mile away, Georgia Avenue was well plowed within a day. The main neighborhood artery was passable within about two days. Our street? First it was sort of smushed down by kids and sleds and dogs and dog walkers. Then some intrepid 4-wheel drive owners ventured out. Eventually, we all drove across lumpy brown slush. Then we had a warm spell, and it melted within a week. But we never saw a plow; those were reserved for bigger streets than ours that needed clearing and re-clearing. Were I feeling reasonable, I'd try to be understanding about that. However.