Christmas Vacation: Home and at Work

i'm at work this week while the minions and the robb are at home. this is what i get by text.

they're museum-ing today and 'relaxing' (as much as you do with two little needers in toe). 

i miss them and feel just a smidge sorry for myself that i'm not home with them, but, really, i love what i do and it's kind of nice to be surrounded by grown people who are responsible for the content of their own nostrils and bowels and don't require my help in their management.

and as i've concluded before, i'm never sorry that i go...but i am always sorry that i leave. i like being at work, i just hate leaving my tiny loves. 

it is what it is.

plus, i like that henry knows that 'mommy helps fix people's bellies at work at the hospital.' 

it makes me feel like a very pelvic-villain-specific super hero. ;)

but i had a lovely few days off and feel refreshed and rejuvinated. and we had a GREAT Christmas filled with family and sunshine and delicious food and fun presents. spoiled, blessed, and happy are we. 

henry was bumming about Christmas being done, taking doen the tree, etc. i told him next up new year's! and anna's birthday in 2 weeks!

we'll try to keep up the festive spirit, even without the december glitter.

Pretty in Pink. Tough in Grey. But Also Tough in Pink and Pretty in Grey.

someone asked me the other day if anna was a 'girly' girl. 

well, there are much smarter, more gender reflecting answers i can give, but i'm tired and sick of braining right now (not because i'm a girl. hashtag rude). 

basically, does she wear pink and play with dolls?

no, because she's not yet 1 and has no say in what she wears, does, or plays with. she's stuck with representing my version of girl-ness, which looks pretty low key. like my casual relationship with the rejection of body hair and that i prefer to buy my underwear in a 6-pack and like my shampoo mixed right in there with my conditioner.

and she's a baby bean still, so she eats toy hammers and baby dolls indiscriminately.

she mostly wears henry's hand-me-downs and when she does wear technically girl clothes, they're from baby gap's german chancellor line.

and i don't entirely know what it means to be 'girly' anyway. like won't touch lizards? only wears pink fruf? prefers figuring out the complex nature of boys instead of chemical compositions?

i just want her to like herself. however that self may be.

and i find pants more condusive to crawling and beating the living shit out of her brother than dresses are.

BUT look how adorable she is in her first skirt!!!! oh, dear. 

Anna is Eleven Months and Lifting Off

pumpkin girl turned 11 months on 12/13/14. cool, right? call the papers and stuff.

she is getting to be so much fun! she's even sharper than before (not just those puppy teeth. #stillnursing #oy). she follows everything we do and plays little games and jokes with us. 

she's not signing or speaking american english words yet, but she is proficient is monkey and gets the job done with that.

she crawls like a beast and took a few steps today! three little fast ones toward me in the middle of the room and then two more later, couch-adjacent but not touching. wooooo!!! proud. those cheeks are not weighing her down, as feared.

she has had a cough & snot nose & sleeplessness for a few weeks but it seems to be lifting a little now, with breathing treatments and other aids.

she has been spirited and spunky throughout it. a little plague won't keep this girl down!

so in love and so excited. she's been anna-ing great so far, excited to see her anna on.

I Will Not Save the Dolphins. I Hate the Dolphins. Stop Talking About the Dolphins.

maybe the hardest part of being a parent is that you have to act like a grown-up all the time.

you would otherwise whine and throw things and throw your head back and howl and curl up in a booze ball, but you have to be brave, and keep trying to be polite and reasonable and a good example even in the roughest of moments and.....it's hard.

i cried last night when my baby wouldn't sleep and kept coughing, pitifully. i cried because i felt bad for her. and for me.

i feel most especially tested in my grown-up abilities when my kids are sick. they've been sick-esque for weeks and it's EXHAUSTING and frightening and frustrating and painful. the sound of tiny bodies hacking and coughing does something physical to us and it's awful. i just want to cry with them and be held by a big person my ownself.

we have family going through a health crisis with their little wee one right now and i just KNOW that these grown people, these parents, have fantasies of throwing themselves on the ground and crying until someone swoops them up and offers them ice cream. you DO talk to all the specialists about how they plan to poke and prod at your poor kid in the name of making him well. you DO listen and nod your head and ask the right questions. but you KIND of REALLY want to spit your chocolate milk in their faces because they are mean and stupid and you want them to go away. you want the whole thing to go away.

but you don't, because you're a parent and a grown-up and you're drinking coffee, not chocolate milk, and spitting hot coffee on someone might be a criminal offense and...#lame.

so, i was at one of the hippie grocery stores today that i frequent. i was feeling frisky, so i took both kids with me, after i picked them up from daycare after work. they were great, but they're both loud and full of needs, and are both just getting through their ailments, so between my cart holding the food and the anna and henry's little kid cart that he was manning himself (knocking into strangers, stopping to examine all the candy), we were sailing down the aisles like this big, loud, consumption float. 

so i'm feeling pretty accomplished until the cashier heckles me about not bringing my own reusable bags.

again, i wanted to bring fire down on him in a I'M DOING THE BEST I CAN DO TWO SICK KIDS WORK ALL THE TIME HOUSE STILL STANDING MOST BILLS PAID ON TIME TRYING TO GET READY FOR CHRISTMAS TRYING TO BE KIND AND GIVING AND A PRETTY GOOD HIPPIE, ACTUALLY, BUT TODAY, BUDDY, TODAY I JUST DON'T CARE ABOUT THE EARTH sorta way.

but instead, i thanked him and left. because i'm a blerging grown-up and i don't need his approval and i don't need my kids to see mommy beat someone unconscious with a loaf of pretzel bread.

but, man, in my head...big salt was flying. 

maybe at a later stage of life i'll save the dolphins, but for now i'm just trying to keep these 4 people, (and a few extra we've collected) out of the tuna nets.

so to speak. 

Are Girls Just as Good as Boys? Yet? Still? Soon? Hello?

i've been thinking a lot about how the skin you're poured into at birth will instantly and forever shape how you are perceived and treated and what options you will have in life. 

it's true for what genitalia you've got slung on you, too. 

i have drafted many posts on my absolute terror at raising a girl. at having to help anna figure out that life won't be quite as open and easy, safe or fair as it will be for her brother. i haven't put them out, because they're hard for me. my thoughts are muddy stuck in worry and disappointment and maybe some sexism, and definitely some helplessness. and i don't want to give her that mess. i don't even want to put it onto the internets and wade through it all. i want to give hope to her, and you. i want to be a voice of earnest belief that things. are. getting. better. 

but i just keep concluding that girls are just not as good as boys. there's so much evidence that that simply MUST be true. 

my words are too many and too tangled and lost and inconclusive and....so, poem. 

girls are just as good as boys

*but that can't possibly be true

why not?

*if it were, then we wouldn't be so mistreated 

*our bodies wouldn't be our most important part and deserve such constant critique

*we would accelerate at the same rate as boys and there would be no limit

*we would be encouraged and applauded for being successful and large at life

*we wouldn't be shamed for our biological differences like blood, milk, and babies

*our massive differences in the fact that babies come out of us and not men wouldn't automatically make us burdens or weapons or moral and political cunundrums 

*a vagina wouldn't be a euphamism for something weak and bad

*our voices wouldn't be silenced in the name of keeping order or honoring a god

*our position and safety and future wouldn't be dependent on men

*we wouldn't all be so "crazy" and "insane" and "hormonal" and "unpredictable" ''

(untrustworthy, unworthy, unreliable, weak again) 

so then, girls aren't as good as boys?

*obviously not. look around. the world makes it clear. 

what if we ARE just as good, but the world is wrong?

*yeah, good luck with that, then. 

then what am i supposed to do, mom?

***********************************

On Prejudice and Privilege

3 very public deaths in the last few months by police. this past week 2 decisions by grand juries have come back without indictments of the officers. victims are a 12 year old, an 18 year old, and a 43 year old father of 6. in at least 2 of the cases, the police officers were white and the victims/perpetrators were black.

so the whole nation is up in arms. actually, there's controversy about putting arms up in a surrender posture in solidarity of one of the men who was shot. it has been said that this is hypercritical of the police force.

there have been riots. there has been much anger and sadness. and some grief and fear. apparently everybody's #drunkuncle showed up for thanksgiving and went all full racist on the topic.

i'm grieving for the deaths, because they seem violent and shocking and preventable. i'm grieving for the families who are without their kids and dad and husband now. i'm grieving for the police officers involved who have to live with this now, always. their careers and lives will never be the same and their dreams may never be unhaunted by it.

but i'm also grieving and worried for our country. it seems like everyone immediately "us'd" and "them'd" and took a side and firmly planted their feet. where is the big "us" who just lost some of its people? some of our children? aren't these our kids, too? and if these deaths could have been prevented by some small changes in protocol or perspective, isn't that what we all should be shouting for? why wouldn't we all be on THAT side?

i'm one of a kabillion voices weighing in on this right now, and i apologize if you're heart and mind are tired of the topic, but i have a theory.

our actions are influenced by our perceptions, which are influenced by our prejudices.

what we do in response to a stimuli is based on how we perceive that stimuli, and how we perceive it is based on prior experiences we've had with it or assumptions we've made about it.

so, let's say that i am a police officer and i carry a weapon for my job. i am instructed to use this weapon to 'neutralize' threats. so, what's a threat? well, it's anything i subjectively decide is a potential danger to another civilian or to myself. my perception of this threat is influenced by any underlying prejudices i have.

so let's say, based on my inherent prejudices, if i see a white man walking down the street, he carries a threat level of 3/10 for me. let's say if i see a black man walking down the street, he carries a threat level of 5/10 for me.

so, if my threshold for discharging my weapon based on my perceived threat is a 10/10...do you see how much closer the black man is to getting shot than the white man?

i'm not a police officer. i don't carry a gun. thank Jesus i don't have to make those insanely difficult decisions and worry constantly about my own safety...and the safety of all people everywhere, always. they have a big job. bless them.

but i am in medicine. my prejudices will color my perceptions, which will effect how i treat people. am i more likely to dismiss pain on one patient versus another? overlook a diagnosis because of a preconceived notion? very possibly. does someone's color, language, sex, sexuality, size, eyes, hair, voice, trigger something in me that will have me responding differently than i would to someone with different characteristics? yes! very possibly yes.

so i have to check my prejudices. i owe it to my customers. it could save lives.

because i'm a weepy mombie, the story that bothered me closest was the 12 year old's. he was playing with a toy gun and when the police pulled up to respond to the potential threat that had been called in by a neighbor, they immediately shot him twice in the stomach and killed him.

henry likes weapons. swords, fake guns, 'shooting swords,' whatever. could he not easily be the 12 year old who is seen as a threat for playing with a toy gun? couldn't that be him in a few years?

well, kind of. but we all know it probably wouldn't be.

why?

well, he's white and he'll be playing in a nice park.

what did he do that was special to keep him safer? to make him appear less of a threat?

he was born the way he was, where he was.

i don't know that we're actually ever fully aware where we stand on the privilege scale. our reality is what we're born into and we don't know any difference along the way.

but we know how we're treated. we gather quickly how we're perceived. whether we're seen as a beautiful flower of the universe or an ugly weed. a benefit to society or a threat.

i know i am extraordinarily privileged. i was born white. that matters a lot. i've never been accused of shop lifting. even when i was a sketchy teenager, i apparently wasn't that sketchy, because i don't remember ever being followed around a store, not trusted. every time i've ever been pulled over by a cop it's because i was, in fact, violating traffic. i was born with money, into an intact family, in a safe neighborhood, and sent to great schools with current books and college expectations. i never wondered where my food would come from or if i would be attacked on my way to school. overall, i knew the adults i encountered had my best interest in mind. so i was rich and i was white. and then i was also straight. so when i fell in love with my person in high school and college, my biggest debate was whether it was the right time, whether i liked him enough, and then how to put together the details of my wedding. my legal wedding. i never worried i'd get assaulted or insulted for my partnership. i never would lose a job or housing arrangement over it. i do face some uphill battles in being a female, but compared to the world and the world in history, i'm one lucky sumbitch there, too.

i think it's important to recognize where we stand on the perceived threat scale based simply on our characteristics. and then critically analyze our own internal threat scale to see where people fall and why.

maybe we can save some of our people. we have to try, right?