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March 2, 2005
I think it is time to confirm that my daughter, at least for the time, is a Mama’s girl. It’s a hard trend to quantify, except that it is most certainly true. A couple of Sunday’s ago when we were at my grandmother’s birthday celebration I was sitting on the floor playing with Ava and some well meaning relative said ‘oooh, she must be a Daddy’s girl.’ John responded by saying, ‘actually no, Ava is a Mama’s girl. She wants to be just like Kate.’ Later that night we started talking about it more and she does seem to seek me out more often than John. Of course I know this kind of behavior is streaky and likely to turn on a dime any moment. And of course I know how much she loves John. But then John said something very sweet to me about how glad he is Ava has a woman she can look to for such a fine example. Having said that, with John out of town for most of the last week, Ava asked for him all the time. Tuesday night when I was trying to settle her down to sleep she kept saying ‘Daddy’ over and over again. I just told her Daddy was working, Daddy loved her, that I missed Daddy too. Again, if you’re a single parent, hats off to you. It is a lot of freakin’ work!
Ava and I have a new game. I take a pretend nibble out of her, somewhere on her body, her chubby cheek, her little arm, her buddha baby tummy and say ‘Ummm… tastes like XXX.” (Salsa, ice cream, cup cakes, applesauce, pizza, broccoli, berries…) Her face brightens and she holds up different body parts for me to ‘taste’ saying ‘more, more’ and repeating the food back to me. My favorite is when she says ‘bear-bees’ for berries. She’s so cute I can hardly stand it. Another new development is Ava’s use of the word happy, or ‘Bappie’ as she says it. It started with her new favorite book of the week “Cock-a-moo-moo” where the poor Rooster has forgotten to crow, he’s very sad, he experiments with different crows (Cock-a-quack-quack etc…) but then remembers to crow and he’s so happy. Then we tried to teach Ava to say ‘Happy Birthday’ for my Grandma Jane’s birthday. Her attempt at that was just ‘Bappie, Bappie.’ Her vocabulary is a cyclical thing, adding words by the day, dropping some, revising some… But I think she might actually get the meaning of happy and is using it somewhat appropriately. Again, totally adorable and heart-warming.
A few Sunday’s ago I switched back and forth been the Grammy awards and ‘Desperate Housewives’ and was able to catch Melissa Etheridge and Joss Stone’s rendition of Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart.” It was an absolutely magnificent performance and it left a lump in my throat. For those of you who didn’t see it, she performed the song shiny bald from the effects of treatment of breast cancer. I really like Melissa Etheridge. I have a number of her CD’s and saw her in concert a few years ago – awesome. Then the next Sunday I saw an interview with Melissa Etheridge on Dateline. She talked about her diagnosis and treatment. She was so brave, so authentic, honest. I was blown away. A portion of the interview included her wife Tammy Lynn Michaels, the support, love and humor she has provided to her during this health crisis. I don’t know how anyone who saw that interview could give me one relevant reason why the two of them should not be allowed to legally marry. Their commitment and love is, if anything, a model for couples, does nothing to undermine MY marriage and is just grossly unfair. We won’t know for awhile if Ava is gay, but I would be heartsick to have her treated with such derisions if she happens to be. How can we be denying people’s own version of happily ever after just because it doesn’t agree with ours? I read Bonnie’s recent entry on talking with her daughter about who can and can’t get married. If you haven’t read it, head over to pre-schooler’s today and take a peak. I would hope that any child who has questions about their sexuality would be treated with such kind understanding. No doubt I will remember her words when (and I do think when) Ava asks me a similar question. I’m gingerly stepping off my soapbox now.
While John was gone a couple of things happened that got me thinking about the balance of gender roles in our house. As you can see by the above liberal rant it is no secret that I consider myself a liberal, a feminist… But I will also be one of the first to hold up my hand if asked if I am also a hypocrite. For example, in our household division of duties I have come to realize that we have broken those down largely on traditional gender roles. Our garbage disposal broke while John was out of town and I merely stopped using it and waited for John to come back and fix it. I have never once mowed the lawn or used our snow blower. I’ll bet John has done maybe 3 loads of laundry since we got married. (To be fair I am a bit of a control freak about the laundry.) But then again on some things we are a little bit untraditional. John does the majority of cooking in our house. I didn’t change my name when we got married. So often I think traditional gender roles minimize the value of one person in the marriage. Like the very erroneous historical belief that women are the more natural care takers. I wonder about all the things we pass on to our children (Meghan, Lane and Ava) about their gender, sub-consciously, without meaning to. Although John did ‘teach’ Meghan to mow the lawn (which she does do ocassionally) because he thought it was important to know how. But when John fixed the garbage disposal I called it a mysterious gift of love and went on my merry way.
I do find it curious those little things that come up as you build a life with someone. Nearly five years into our marriage some of those roles have been intentional, some have just happened, some changed when Ava was born. John does the cooking, I do most of the grocery shopping for staples like bread, milk, breakfast cereal, ,yogurt… but he does the shopping for meals he wants to prepare. I do the laundry, put away our clean clothes, the dry cleaning, sorting through what fits Ava, what doesn’t… John mows the lawn and blows snow, I do most of the weeding and tending to our flowers, vegetables. I usually load and unload the dishwasher, but he washes the big pots and pans. He usually scrubs the counters, I almost always sweep and mop the floor. I handle most of the logistical type planning – do we have a babysitter, do the kids have lunch money, scheduling Ava’s well baby visits etc… John is almost always the first one out of bed at night if one of the kids needs something. John takes Ava downstairs for breakfast nearly every morning while I get ready for work, but I pick out her outfits and get her dressed. He bathes Ava every night, but I read her story and put her to bed. We work out together the daily drop off and pick up of Ava, Meghan and Lane with a very curious attention to making sure one of us doesn’t do more than the other. It’s a pretty well orchestrated dance we do everyday to manage our lives and I feel most blessed to be partnered up with someone as great as my husband.
Friday morning I set off for my ‘estrogen weekend’ (as John calls it) with my girlfriends in Chicago. We had the most wonderful time. We laughed and talked about fun stuff, serious stuff, motherhood, work, public policy, politics, Cialis and everyone we knew. What a great group of ladies. We stayed at a very nice hotel called Hotel 71, right off Michigan Avenue. Very modern, spacious rooms, nice view, reasonably priced. The front desk was a bit of a disaster, but other than that the service was great. We started our weekend at a wine bar called Bin 36, which was very cool. Nice selection of tasty wines, great munchies of bread and cheese. (What else do we really need beside wine, bread and cheese?) We hit the swank Sushi Samba for dinner – it was delish. I love good sushi and you’ll be shocked, shocked to learn that Iowa is not exactly flush with sushi restaurants. The restaurant was a very ‘see and be seen’ sort of place – a fun, urban experience. That night we stayed up until almost 1am sitting in my room, drinking even more wine and tripping over ourselves to talk and catch up.
Saturday morning we went to the Jackie Kennedy exhibit at the Field Museum. It was really pretty cool, but more crowded than I wanted it to be. I figured, since it was a ticketed exhibit it would help control the crowd a bit. I loved the evening gowns, but wasn’t as enamored by the suits and every day wear. The main event was our long afternoon stroll through the fabulous shopping on Michigan Avenue. I thought I showed remarkable restraint in my shopping… I bought a fun little purse (barely more than a wallet) at Burberry, (also picked up a beautiful tie there for John) I got Ava a Nemo t-shirt at the Disney store, I got a beautiful cashmere sweater on deep, deep discount at Ann Taylor and a Stila lip gloss – that’s it. I loved holding the Manolo Blahniks at Barneys – I told John that as soon as he wins his first big case that’s what I’m buying just to have a pair! Some trends I noticed in Chicago that I’m looking forward to – the scarf as head band – very cute, need to experiment with that. And the absolute explosion of girly tank tops and camisoles. I have one really beautiful lace cami that I like to wear (actually wore it out to the swank sushi place), but I think I’ll look for a few inexpensive lace cami/tank tops, because I liked the look with jeans and little skirts. I saw many women wearing them – maybe with a little cardigan on since it is still sort of chilly. I’m not quite sure how I feel about the wedge sandals I saw in all the stores. You may have to drag me kicking and screaming away from my strappy sandals. In some more shameless product placement, we had a marvelous feast at a restaurant called Mia Francesa in Lincoln Park on Saturday night. Loved it! But mostly I loved the feeling of good food, good wine and wonderful conversation with these women I love.
As much fun as I had with my girlfriends, and believe me it was a ton of fun, I missed John a lot. We spent the Labor Day weekend before we got married five years ago in Chicago and had a magical time. I think my girlfriends got a little sick of me saying “John would love this” to each restaurant, the hotel and so forth. We haven’t had a get away alone, just the two of us since Ava was born. I certainly was craving that time with him this weekend. But in a dichotomy that happens frequently, Saturday morning and Sunday morning I savored my alone time in my hotel room like you can’t believe. I woke up to the sunlight coming in through open curtains looking out at a city I really enjoy. I laid there, no one needed me, I read ‘In Style’ and enjoyed the quiet. I also missed that first morning hug with John and thought about my girl, waking up and asking for her mama. No doubt I needed the time alone and with my girlfriends to recharge, but I was so happy to see my family Sunday night.
For the six people who follow this diary I kind of feel like I need to apologize for the delay in posting a new entry. I think this is as long as I’ve gone without posting since I started this diary nearly a year ago. I was gone all weekend, and then this week has taken off like a rocket. I’ve already put in two 13 hour days at work due to a series of unforeseen happenings. I’ve been working on this entry here and there, sometimes during really boring committee meetings, so it might be a bit disjointed. I saw Ava awake for about 10 minutes on Monday and just felt sick about it. On Tuesday morning Ava refused to go to her dad for breakfast as she does almost every morning. She kept saying ‘no daddy’ and curling up into me. I took her downstairs to eat her “Piss-pees” and she wouldn’t sit in her chair, only in my lap. When I sat her in her chair so I could go to the bathroom she sobbed, ‘mama, mama…’ with big tears rolling down her cheeks until I came back. I wanted to sob right along with her. I can’t leave out the fact that as soon as she was done with her “piss-pees” she asked to watch Elmo and barely gave me another look all morning. But it once again (as if I needed the reminder) underscored how hard it is to balance work and home, alone time and family time. If I ever figure it out I intend to write a book and become fabulously wealthy.
Thanks for reading—
--Kate
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