Earth Mama!
A few days before Ellie was born, Tomoko’s hormones kicked into turbo and she almost-weepingly asked me what we would do if she wasn’t a good mother. What if she had post-partum depression? What if she didn’t bond? What if she didn’t really like this parenting thing? In my great wisdom, I prescribed a tall glass of scotch and told her to call the psychotherapist in the morning, which, believe it or not, she didn’t think was funny.
Then Ellie arrived and Tomoko immediately took to her. It’s an amazing thing to see that happen: your basic, all-purpose, high-function, type-A, very successful New York career woman, within five minutes of becoming a mother, gets all gooey-eyed over the little one. Plus, she’s immediately an expert on everything: diapering, breast-feeding, cooing Ellie to sleep, the whole Mommy shebang. And I don’t mean an annoying expert—she’s good at it, comfortable doing it, and the baby is responding in kind. So far—and yes, we’re still in the blissful first couple of weeks of her life—Ellie is calm and manageable. And she eats like a horse.
I’m concerned, however, that Tomoko may be overdoing it. For example, last night Ellie woke me up around around 1 a.m., crying in the bassinet. I picked her up, did a bit of the daddy dance to quiet her, and was going to change her, and then wake Tomoko up to feed her. Before I could do that, Tomoko leapt from bed, swept Ellie into her arms, and took her into the room for diapers and milk, without a word or a complaint. I went back to sleep.
Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and personally, I have nothing against extra sleep. Also, my work hours are considerably more flexible than Tomoko’s, so when she does go back, I’ll be the primary caretaker (in the hours after work; we’re getting a nanny, I think; recommendations?) not just for Ellie but for JP, too. This includes amusing them, feeding them (and us), doing whatever limited cleaning we ever do, and keeping everything together until she returns home from keeping the world safe for advertising.
But it just strikes me as unusual—and cute and nice—that’s she’s turning down nighttime help from the man of the house. I may have a keeper.
The Vacation Meta-Dilemma
Sometime today I should be getting a call or e-mail from Jean, letting me know if her planned vacation dates have been approved by her boss. I’m really very excited—for all the traveling I do, it’s rarely with her and Sasha, and even more rarely can the trips qualify as actual vacation.
That is, most of the time I’m traveling alone, for my work, which is incredibly fun but often lonely. So when Jean and I have the freedom to get away together, it’s fantastic. It’s almost unimaginable that we’d do what Neal Pollack and his wife, Regina, do—they vacation separately:
I understand why some couples don’t like the idea of traveling apart. There’s the thought that you’ll be missing out on all the fun, or that an attractive stranger might walk into the bar (which happens in Jennifer Aniston movies, but not so much in real life). Realistically, though, how are two middle-aged people with limited income and children to support supposed to have long-term romantic getaways? They’re not. Allowing your partner to travel alone means acceptance of your modest circumstances. To follow dreams, sometimes you have to give up illusions.
It does make sense, and the trips that Pollack describes in this Salon.com article are entertaining: Regina has a wonderful time visiting British (?) crop circles, while Pollack tears his left hamstring just before a miserable trip to a yoga retreat.
In the end, he reminisces about the trip they actually took together for their 10th wedding anniversary, and finishes the piece with the tooth-achingly saccharine kicker: “We had a really fun and memorable time. Best of all, we had it together.”
Urk. What a sentiment.
Anyway, this brings up a tangential issue that Jean and I are currently struggling with: how to balance Sasha and our social life. For a lot of things, there’s no problem: I’ve always gone out—to drinks, to dinners, to events—a lot more than Jean, and while I always love to have her along, as often as not she’s happy to stay home. And since we can’t just leave Sasha sleeping in her crib within no one in the apartment, she now has a perfectly valid justification for not going out.
But often, we do want to go out together, most often to dinners at friends’ houses. Usually, we rely on our neighbors to baby-sit. In our small building, three of the four units have kids around the same age, and so we trade kid-watching nights all the time.
Of course, it doesn’t always work out, which provokes these questions: Do we just stay in? Do we struggle to find a paid baby-sitter? Do we invite everyone to our place? Or do we bring Sasha along, hoping that, when her inflexible bedtime of 8 p.m. arrives, she’ll happily crash in whatever spare bedroom is available?
Lately, we’ve been staying in or inviting everyone else over—it’s easier that way. But are those the right decisions? Are we letting the fact of our having a child overly dictate the span of our social lives? Would it cause irreparable harm to Sasha to have an erratic night’s sleep now and then?
Finally—and this is the most important question of all—is anyone free to babysit Friday night? We’d like to go out.
A Typical Morning at Dadwagon HQ
From: Nathan Thornburgh
Date: Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 7:28 AM
To: Matt Gross, Ted Ross
I’m stuck with the kids again today, so no new posts from me until this evening.
———-
From: Matt Gross
Date: Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 8:34 AM
Thanks! We’ll fill the space remaining somehow…
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From: Ted Ross
Date: Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 9:00 AM
probably offline today, folks. sorry. i’ll file if i can.
———-
From: Nathan Thornburgh
Date: Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 9:31 AM
I’ll see if I can put the kids in front of the TV and pitch in.
———-
From: Ted Ross
Date: Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 9:37 AM
sorry–today i have to write the index, get to work on my book, and read, sign, notarize my final divorce docs. then i have a jew ping-pong event at lincoln center.
i don’t know what kind of cliche i am, but it ain’t a good one, especially as i’m writing this from a cafe at which i am sharing a table with a woman with a matching mac laptop and having unpure thoughts about her.
and thus ends the wasting of time.
———-
From: Nathan Thornburgh
Date: Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 9:39 AM
That woulda made a good post right there.
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From: Ted Ross
Date: Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 9:48 AM
i’ll add this and try to do this afternoon: “and then i thought of my daughter and everything seemed worth it.”
———-
From: Nathan Thornburgh
Date: Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 9:49 AM
Jajajaja
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From: Matt Gross
Date: Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 9:53 AM
Can we just run this entire e-mail thread as a post?
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From: Ted Ross
Date: Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 10:14 AM
that’s not a bad idea.