Artificially Sweetened

Most of the boxes are unpacked. And glory glory hallelujah, we finally have both internet and a landline.

Both Pepito and his mommies have been enjoying the new house.

Looking out at his new backyard.

Proudly walking (not independently, thank g-d) amidst the boxes.

Peering through the “chubby kat” cat door.

The house has a semi-finished basement room, which we call the playroom. Here’s the “adult” side. I got this on Saturday at a yard sale for $60 - delivered.

And while the mommies play pool, the boy can play with his toys… A lot of these were left for us by the previous owner.

My friend MC is right: move is a four letter word. Go give her some lurve, she has been through hell lately. I hate it when things don’t work out for my friends.

I started my new job on Monday.  So far… so good.  I am a little nervous about the expectations people have of me - after waiting a year for someone to start, it’s easy for that person (um, me) to become supergirl, the imaginary solution to all problems.  On the other hand, the position has been vacant for a long time, and I’m basically starting from scratch (well, from scratch with an office full of files going back to 1973), so anything I do will be better than the nothing that was happening before, right?

I have to choose an insurance plan, or negotiate a pay raise (already, I know: I am supergirl) that would enable me to stay on Pili’s excellent insurance and spare new employer the expense of covering me.   Amazingly, for a very small, rather financially challenged organization, they are paying my whole premium. This may change once they discover what I will do to their insurance costs…

Last year, Pili paid $3800 dollars for the privilege of having me on her insurance.  If Employer paid me $4000 extra, I would happily stay on her coverage.  Of course, Pili’s employer’s contributions to my health care are not tax-deductible - in fact, they are counted as additional income and she is taxed on them!   

I am usually pretty good at figuring these things out, but for some reason, my eyes have been glazing over on this decision.  Tomorrow I will find a detailed current benefits & costs list for Pili’s insurance and post the new options and the current plan here and let you all tell me what to do.  I also have to find out how diabetes and pump supplies are covered under the different plans… most of them have a 50% co-pay for non-generic perscriptions.   I am terrible at swallowing pills, and the generic version of my anti-depressent pill is not coated, so it always gets stuck in the back of my throat and tastes nasty.  In order to avoid tasting battery acid in the back of my mouth all day, I have my doctor write that one DAW and pay extra for the name brand.  But I may get depressed all over again thinking about how much that stuff will cost me with a 50% copay. 

Finally - I swear this isn’t strictly a mommy blog…  although I know it sure looks that way at the moment.

But our boy has started doing some really incredibly cute things.  He’s cruising all over the furniture, and he loves to push his little walkie thing around.  He has also started kissing.  Last night, we were reading Whose Knees are These and when we got to the last page with the picture of the baby, he kissed it over and over again.

This morning, he was occupying himself with his second favorite passtime - pull-all-the-books-off-the-shelf - (his first favorite is pull-all-the-shoes-off-the-rack) and he pulled out The Happiest Toddler on the Block.  After studying it for a while, he started kissing the little girl on the cover.  By the time I got the camera out though, he was trying to eat the dust jacket.  I hope it’s true… you are what you eat!

This post is already reeedicuklously long, so I will not get into the Great Sleep Wars of 2007 that have been waged around here.  Except to say, please tell me about how you and your partner fought bitterly disagreed entirely had very difficult times deciding what to do with a child who Does Not Like to Go to Bed.  Even when he is Very Very Tired. 

I don’t think I’ve ever gone this long without posting before. Life has been… interesting. And not in a very good way.

For some reason I feel very embarrassed and ashamed about what I’m about to write about.  Things with the job in MUCDTR are not going so smoothly - it turns out that they have not been able to raise the money they need in order for me to start working there. They’re still trying their damndest and it’s possible that any day now the funding will come through. But for the moment, I wait. And fret. And stress.

In the meantime: I have given notice at my current job (although nothing has been done to replace me, and they would probably be very happy if I were to say I could stay longer) ; I just spent a lot of time at a professional conference telling everyone about my new job and how excited I am about it; and oh yes, did I mention that we have a contract on, and have put down a deposit of not an insubstantial amount of money on, a house in MUCDTR.

Insert head in sand. Scream.

I don’t really want advice or even sympathy and righteous indignation.  I feel like I deserve this.  I feel like I should have known better. That my old friend, the black cloud is still following me around and who am I to think I could actually have things work out for me.

This feeling is compounded by watching younger babies exit PGN ahead of our GB.  Intellectually I know that the fedex delay probably set us back a month, because it meant that our power of attorney arrived a week later than it should have and thus landed in the midst of the holiday black hole that is December in Guatemala. Intellectually I know that the whole fuckup with the DNA paperwork also cost us several weeks. Intellectually, I know that I did nothing to provoke either of these events. Just bad luck. Emotionally? I feel like we are doomed and Guatebaby is never coming home and I will never succeed professionally and why do I even bother?

I got a letter in the mail today officially offering me the position in more-urban-city-down-the-road (MUCDTR) that has been in the works since november.

I am thrilled. I am panicking, big time.

Homes in MUCDTR are twice as expensive as our house here. There is actually more than one neighborhood where we’d consider living. We need to find a home. Very very soon. Mortgage. House selling. House buying. Movers. Aaaaaaaaaack. [sandbox, head, insert, deeply]

We will be moving. I will be starting a new job. And possibly hopefully bringing home our boy. All right around the same time, if g-d and pgn* cooperate. Aaaaaaaack. [deep breath of sand]

Pili will be commuting a loooong way to her job and staying over a few nights a week while school is in session. I will be single momming it a few nights a week while school is in session. [Daycare. Add to list of Things. To. Figure. Out. Very large breath of sand.]

House. Daycare. Car. Two-door tin-can. Want to replace with car that does not require advanced yoga skills in order to get car seat in/out before boy comes home. Buy house. Buy car. Sell house. Sell car? Finish Big Projects at Current Job. Start New Job. Bring home baby? Move. And Still Leave time for Pili to Write Book.

Hyperventilating sand.

Plus: As much as I gripe about the city with only three thai restaurants, we’ve made some really wonderful friends here. We have a beautiful house here. Now that this possible job is becoming Real, I find myself clutching onto the familiar and wondering whether I could have overlooked some way - in all my trying - that I could have made this place work for me professionally.

I know this is the right move. I think I know this is the right move. I’m so so freakin’ scared.

*This is assuming we are actually in PGN. Because this is a HAPPY albeit panicky post, I am not going to get into my current irritation with GAL today.

(Yes, we really have friends whose initials are T&A. No, they don’t really think it’s as funny as I do.) This was originally supposed to be posted on the day of the big snow, but Pili’s camera cable was eaten by a puppy in India.

This is what I was doing while Pili was cooking up a Valentines Day feast.

Still think you know who’s butch in our relationship, ladies?

And to my friend Chicagomama. You can have your g-ddamn Weggies. I just want my innocence back. In other words, I want to return to a life where the words “roof rake” have no personal significance to me. This is about the time of year when I forget how much the other people on our condo board annoyed me and all I remember is that when we lived there I did not have to shovel sixteen tons of snow off my deck so that it wouldn’t collapse.

And to the previous owners of our house: What were you smoking when you built an extension onto the house with a flat roof? In the freakin’ frozen tundera icebound wasteland snowbelt?

And to my back, shoulders, and legs: I’m really, really sorry. Yes, I know you’re not twenty-one anymore. I’m sure I’ll know that even more tomorrow morning.

And to the people who wrote the grant application I learned was due tomorrow yesterday, on which I’ve been working all day, on Valentines Day: If you don’t give this to us, I am going to be majorly pissed. More later - I still have a 2/3 in-kind match to fabricate figure out.

Once I can laugh about something it usually seems a little more in control.  The thing that got me over the laughing-about-it hump with the current two-career quandry was listening to “The Ballad of Mary Magdalene” by Richard Shindell.  The first verse goes like this…

My name is Mary Magdalene
I come from Palestine
please excuse these rags I’m in
I’ve fallen on hard times
Long ago I had my work
when I was in my prime
but I gave it up, and all for love
it was his career or mine

On Friday, my therapist pointed out that we both feel like our backs are up against the wall. Pili’s scared that she will be trapped into a commute that keeps her from having a strong relationship with her son and I’m scared of being “tricked” into sacrificing my dreams and getting stuck in a city that doesn’t offer me any job opportunities. And when someone feels like their back is against the wall, my very wise therapist reminded me, they don’t tend to respond from the most generous “we-thinking” part of themself. I heart therapy, big time.

This weekend was better. Not so much talking about it, but what talking there was felt more mutual and generous to me. We’ve pulled through big tough transitions before, and I feel certain we’ll come through this one too.

And last night, a good email in my inbox. The DNA test was done, two weeks ago.  Which means that the results should be available shortly.  And hopefully it will be a match.  While there are still other opportunities for Guatebaby’s mom to decide that she wants to parent, this is the last time she actually has to see and hold him, and is usually when someone will change her mind about relinquishment if she’s going to.

I hate that my heart lifts at this.  That the attainment of my dream means that another woman will not experience parenting her son.  I hope that we will be able to connect with her down the road if Guatebaby wants to.  We sent a letter for her, thanking her for this indescribable gift, assuring her that we would send pictures and updates.  I don’t know what brings her to this juncture, but I hope that she can be at peace with her decision.  It’s important to me that I support organizations like Wings, which provide reproductive choice options to women and men in Guatemala, in the hope that doing so will mean that another woman does not have to carry a child she knows she will not be able to feed or care for.

…that things had miraculously improved since that last post.

I can’t. It seems we do not get January photos as the holiday photos we got in the end of December count for January. To which I stick out my tongue and and say phooey. How hard is it, honestly, to snap a bunch of digital photos of babies in a hogar?

It might be harder than I think, as we did get a photo from a visiting family, which, unfortunately, is very blurry and which I am not at all sure is actually a photo of my Guatebaby.

And apparently GAL, who has the unenviable position of running interference between the hogar and the chomping at the bit adoptive parents, has not been able to get January measurements from the folks in Guatemala.

Things at home continue to be, for lack of a better word, tense. I feel like even the cats are fighting more. I’m sure that we will pull through this as we have pulled through difficult stretches before. It really does help to hear that other people struggle with the two career/where to live issue as well.

I constantly question myself: am I holding onto my career dreams just because I wouldn’t know who I am/how to define myself without them? I don’t think so. When I’m at a job that’s a good fit for me, I know that I’m doing what I love. There’s a part of me that says I should just give up these hopes and do what would make life easiest for us as a unit. But why should I be the one to do that?

[This is where I start feeling like the chips are falling along traditional gender lines, with me the woman and Pili the man. And I will be damned if I will give into that tired old narrative.]

Recently I saw my DREAM JOB advertised. A high level position at an organization that I think is doing amazing and unique work - in the Big City Four+ Hours South. When Pili was playing the “soon-to-be-wed” game at her bachelorette party, her friends asked her what my dream job would be. And she answered, correctly, this position, at this organization. I thought about applying but decided that while the compromise we’ve come up with to allow me to take an interesting, career-advancing job in a better location (which will involve the moving and commuting alluded to to in the last post) is unpleasant and hard on Pili, this was simply impossible. Unless Pili was willing to leave her job, which she’s not. Rinse, lather, repeat.

So I’m curious: how do gender roles or your reactions to them (even in a same-gender relationship) shape the way you handle conflict and decision-making in your family?

My first post is up at lesbianfamily.org.

And tomorrow is MY LAST DAY at the Job that Blows. It should be interesting.

That’s all.

1) I must wish a huge and happy birthday to the sweetest, most fabulously wonderful, Piliest of Pilis in the whole wide world. I can’t wait until we’ve lived more of our lives together than without each other. Even if that takes a while, because well - you’re old(er than me). SMOOCH.

2) If you’re not reading the posts over at lesbian family get over there now. I am humbled to be joining a team with such amazing women - and such amazing writers. And I really wish I had done my introductory post first, because now I’m totally intimidated. Kwynne is blogging so brilliantly about “cake batter race theories” and queer parenting. Trista has a fantastic letter to Heather Poe, aka Mrs. Mary Cheney. J. is musing about what it means to be “family.” And Round is thinking about what makes a “real mom.” You don’t even have to be a lesbian! And while you’re at it, go and vote for Polly aka LesbianDad in a tight Best New Blog Race which has been marred by some really nasty homophobic b.s.

3) BLOGGER BLECH: All I can say is that as soon as I am done with this verdamnte project - as for me and my blog we will worship the wordpress. If I haven’t commented on your blog lately it is because a) I am way too busy and stressed and/or b) blogger will not let me.

4) I gave my notice at the job that blows on Monday. It was so unbelievably satisfying. The details of the story are not bloggable, but there was a lot of vindication involved in letting them know that other people like and appreciate me. I will be returning to the Job That Does Not Blow, except with a fancier title, in January.

Back to the Project That Ate My Life. Smooches, Art.

So, I have gotten a title change at the Workplace Most Dysfunctional(WMD - Hey, President Bush, I’ve found your WMDs!). Instead of being the Coordinator of Blah Blah, I am now the Manager of Blah Blah and Blech Blech. This is a good thing for my resume and for my chances of securing a job at a place which does not cause me to gnash my teeth and break out in spontaneous bursts of weeping when I make the mistake of reading my work email at home.

The problem is that I do not know how to indicate this on my resume and I need to send out some job letters ASAP.

My job responsibilites have not changed at all. I am still an underemployed peon whose superiors love to remind her of that fact (thus the spontaneous weeping from reading work email at home). But I am theoretically an underemployed peon who might be working full-time come January, and I suggested that that fact deserved a new title more representative of my many tasks and few responsibilities. My boss agreed. Other people needed to order new business cards. Business cards are cheaper if ordered in bunches. Thus, my title change happened now.

Do I:

1. List both positions on my resume seperately:

Workplace Most Dysfunctional, Manager of Blah and Blech, DATE -
BIG FAT BLANK SPACE

Workplace Most Dysfunctional, Coordinator of Blah Blah, DATE - DATE
TASKS

2. or put them in one description, giving the dates for each title:

Workplace Most Dysfunctional, Manager of Blah and Blech, DATE - PRESENT;Coordinator of Blah Blah, DATE - DATE
TASKS

I am leaning toward 2., but your suggestions are welcome. But if you know any identifying information about me or the WMD, please, please don’t mention it.

ALSO, an update on the ETHICAL DILEMMAS:

I mentioned to L., the security guard that when I told Pili about her niece’s wedding, Pili had asked what they were planning to do about the MA residence law. L. said, “Oh, Cape Cod is in MA? And shit, no, niece is not a MA resident.” She was glad to know about the law and said she would check with her niece. The next day she told me that her niece was aware of the law, was just going to do her thing and see what happened, but that they were grateful for our concern.

And here’s what I told the flakey intern:

Dear Flakey,

I wanted to check in with Good Job about their reference policy. As a reference, I can verify the dates you were there and what your responsibilities were.

Good Luck!

Art-Sweet

What would I do without you, oh fabulous bloggy friends?

I apologize for leaving that worrisome headline up there for so long.

Nothing is wrong with the adoption, in fact things are rolling along fairly smoothly (so far). Pili and I had a spat about adoption related things and in a fit of immaturity I decided that the best way to communicate with her was to blog about it. When I came to my senses I realized talking to her was probably a better strategy. Shocking, I know.

I am in an ongoing state of adoptus frustratus just because I am a person who wants to Do Things. And right now all I can do is wait. Wait for the letter so we can go and get fingerprinted. Wait for Vaseline Teeth to write up the homestudy. Wait wait wait wait wait.

Fortunately I have been keeping myself entertained with various work-related soap operas (Dear Exec. Director: Asking the one African American staff member at our organization for suggestions for African-American board members in an all staff meeting does not convince me that you understand why board diversity is important) along with more pleasant endeavors. I got to meet the newly gravid Bri, Mikey & Sophia of Ewok Journeydom and Lo of the Family O. Much fun and food was had.

I am so intrigued by the differences and similarities between people’s online personalities and inperson personalities. Bri seemed a little more gentle in person than her rapier online wit led me to expect… or perhaps it was the lack of caffiene and her newly delicate condition? Sophia was positively bubbly. A nice tall glass of seltzer our Sophia. (I drink about a gallon of the stuff a day, so this is decidely complimentary). She and Mikey are very cute together. And Lo was much quieter than I had expected, given that she wrangles seventh graders for a living! (Perhaps she just recharges all summer long?) I’m very curious to know what you all think. Was I what you expected? How is your online personality different from your real life personality?

Upcoming Updates: Some BlogLove, a Smokey Update, The Return of the Interview Meme (you thought I forgot! Anyone else want to be interviewed?), and the resolution of the Ethical Dilemmas.