Sanity, Productivity, Consistent Sleep, and Stay-At-Home Parenting: One of These Things is Not Like the Other, One of These Things Just Doesn't Belong

It sounded like a sensible plan, in theory. Pull kiddo out of preschool we can longer afford, chill with her at home for three months, and put her back in just in time to start my first MFA residency in June, when ye olde Stafford Loan kicks in. Wise decision, right?

Well, it would be, save for one minor detail: I have to submit 20 new, decent-enough-to-workshop-without-fear pages (!) for the residency by April 15th.

That might not sound like a lot to all you disgustingly prolific people, but for me, the literary slowpoke, it might as well be friggin' NaNoWriMo. Not the kind of task one tackles in an hour or two after dinner, or while the girl is napping. No, Gentle Reader, this is the stuff of 2 am floor pacing, Dear God I haven't been workshopped in an academic setting in over ten years, please let me be worthy angstapolooza. (Look out, boys, she's bustin' out the stupid, trying-to-be-clever neologisms ... I smell trouble ...)

It's now day four of Crouching Deadline, Hidden Childcare, and my mood stability and sleep regulation are in the toilet. I spend most of the day a zombie, shuffling around in my bathrobe, handing out yogurt bars and cleaning poo and feigning alertness, wrecked from late nights spent either tossing in bed in worried agitation, or hunched in front of a computer screen (only an inch away from the monitor, this time, thanks to the visual disturbances induced by last week's' flu o'doom). In the afternoon, my poor child sits entranced by Condoleeza Rice (!) on PBS while I attempt to nap, praying the snippets of dialogue and description will (please, God) stop racing relentlessly in my head. Meanwhile, the nice program director in LA leaves gently persuasive voicemails. Here, have a scholarship! We really, really want you! Part of me is delighted, while another stiffens in terror, thinking, Oh shit, now I really have to write a brilliant chapter. Either way, I'm too incoherent to call him back and tell him I already sent my deposit in.

Repeat after me: Working at home is a privilege. It is the best of both worlds. I am a lucky bitch who has it all.

Rinse, lather, repeat, until you believe. Or until, in my case, you say funk it and call the preschool and give them your credit card number.

IRS Publication #FU4EVR: Here, Have Eighty Bucks, Go Buy A Year Worth of Childcare!

Up late estimating my tax return so I can plug numbers into federal financial aid forms for grad school, and what does TurboTax tell me?

I'm eligible for a whopping $88 credit on my taxes for my childcare expenses in 2008.

Eighty. Eight. Dollars.

Apparently the Internal Revenue Service doesn't realize that that piddly amount reimburses me for one day of childcare, not an entire year. Maybe I should send them a memo?

Oh, and here's the fun part. Childcare costs are considered valid if you're utilizing them to look for work, but you only get to take a credit if you get work, so if you're in a job market like mine where it can take months, if not years, to land a full-time gig, all those daycare bills don't mean poopadoodle to Uncle Sam.

And if you're "lucky" enough to have steady employment that makes childcare a non-negotiable, guess how much you get to take in credits, assuming you only have one child who needs watching? At max, $1k. Which, around here, pays for maybe a month for the under-3 set.

I'm not saying the federal government should give us all tax credits for the full amount we pay in childcare each year (though, believe me, I'd take it happily if they did). I'm just asking the IRS to get a clue about how expensive (and essential) childcare really is, and cut us a break.

And as long as I'm asking for favors ... Hey, Oregon, raise the income limits for DHS childcare vouchers, would ya? Don't tell me you really think that every family who makes more than $36k a year can magically afford to shell out. (Oh, wait, that's right, I'm talking to the same state that says I'm not vision-impaired, even though I'm literally three inches away from my monitor in order to type this.)

My, my, such vitriol, you tsk. Well, fear not, Gentle Reader, there is one IRS quirk I think is abso-friggin-lutely brilliant. And that, my friends, is a little thingamajig called a First Time Homeowner Credit. $7500 in yo' pocket. With which one could pay off one's credit cards, and still have some cha-ching left to put bamboo-style laminate flooring in one's condo, and never again have to run the steam cleaner when one's obstinate dachshund decides to once again lazily hunker down like a little camel to go Number Two in the living room of one's rental that is cursed with wall-to-wall-carpet.

Not that I'm, umm, obsessively house-hunting at the moment. Or dreaming of that afternoon when I'd make my pilgrimage to IKEA, striding across the "five thousand people's dirty shoes walk over me all day, and look how stylee I still am" laminate sample with pride, knowing we're loadin' up the car with a couple pallets of that TUNDRA goodness, baby.

We shall see. I need childcare more than I need an overpriced condo, of course, but given that we now have Obama in the hizzouse, who knows. Childcare, MFA program, and home ownership? The trifecta. I'd pee my pants. I'd weep for joy.

This message brought to you from the Department of Multitasking Madness.

I know I promise articulate musings. But today I shall just say:

Aaaaaaaaack!

Gentle Reader, do not apply for grad school, student financial aid, and a mortgage all in the same week. Trust me. Just don't. Just sit and watch the inauguration replay again and cheer, and drink something sparkly, and think of me in my masochistic huddle, filling out form after form after form with a small army of homeopathic calm tablets under my tongue.

I will bring you rants and raves and meme questionnaires galore for your procrastination-enhancing scrutiny next week. Until then, I remain your ever-humble servant of over-ambition, thinking only, Man, it's a good thing these woo pills taste like peppermint.

Question Time (Non-Parliamentary Style)

Courtesy of Rebekah, who was brave enough to interview yours truly, and puts Babawawa to shame with her depth o'query. (Must neither riff on Jack Handy nor Tori Amos regarding really deeeeeep thoughts. Must not.)

Umm. Yeah. Anyway. Here goes mah answers.

Are you now or have you ever been psychic? How do you know?

I am not, as far as I can tell. I've managed to date several people who were utterly convinced *they* were, which was showy and annoying as all get-out, but me? Nah. If I ever have a nightmare in which something dire or horrid happens to someone I know, I still call 'em the next morning to make sure they're all in one piece. Just in case.

Would you rather die heroically or cowardly?

Theoretically, I'd go out heroic, but I'm also a wimp with a surprisingly piddly pain tolerance, so the realist in me would pick the latter.

How hard would it be for you to live somewhere without fresh indoor water? Electricity? Plumbing?

I'd be whiny as hell and basically screwed. I'm not high-maintenance, but Lawd do I need the basics.

What is your primary cellphone ringtone?

Right now, it's the default twinkly marimba, but I wanna find and download a bitchin' ringtone off the iTunes Store. (Did I just use the word "bitchin'" with a straight face? Is it magically 1994? Sheesh.)

Are you more witty or snarky?

Depends on how mood-stable I am! Generally, though, I'd put my mon on witty.

Most extreme personal change or changes you've ever made?

Getting divorced, moving cross-country, having a baby, then getting remarried (all in the space of 2 years).

Favorite city you've lived in or want to live in?

Lived in, I'd say Portland (despite its preciousness and economic frustration). Want to? London or Toronto.

Has your life up til now been more blameless or messy? Moving forward from here, which one would you choose?

Messy. No contest. I'd rather be blameless from here on out, but it feels like hubris to even posit that as possible.

Worst kiss (or kiss-like experience)?

Sitting in a strange apartment in Reykjavik with a drunk man twice my age whom I'd just met on a traffic island (I am not making this up), smudging my lips over his in the hopes it would simmer him down long enough that he wouldn't try anything else. (We wound up holing up in that apartment for two weeks together. I was 20, and that potent combination of bold and vulnerable that makes you take amazingly idiotic risks. He was amazingly hot, and related to Bjork, but other than that ... not much to recommend.)

You HAVE to pick a religion to practice. Evangelical Christian, Zoroastrian, Jainist or Scientologist? (and why?)

Evangelical, because it fascinates me, and because deep down I'm really hungry for a structure to follow to soothe my restless soul. I'd probably last about five minutes as a submissive wife, though.

The person you are romantically involved with announces they are getting a sex change. Would it change your feelings for them?

Not in the slightest. (I'm kinda curious, now, what my partner would be like in distaff version.)

Meat helmet or thigh-high golden boots with large wings attached to them?

I'm a suckah for da boots.

How many times have you been what you consider REALLY in love? Do you still love those people/that person?

Oh mercy, mercy. Viking Alcoholic Beefcake above is a definite no, but other than that ... let's see. Of the four major (read: not substance-induced) relationships I've had, I'd say I really loved 3 of them, by my current quasi-mature-adult standards. Two of those I still carry some *affection* towards, but not what I'd call love. And the third I'm married to, so there ya go. (If you're wondering why #4 didn't make the cut, trust me, you don't wanna know.)

When you die, what do you think happens? Do you hope to be disappointed or somehow wrong about that?

I haven't a clue, though I'd like to think it involves some delicious payoff like all-you-can-eat baklava ice cream. Seriously, I'm really stumped about the afterlife. I hope my beloved people are safe and happy, but other than that ...

Do you know your ethnic ancestry? Is that interesting or otherwise important to you?

I know a little (enough to know that I'm a lotta German and Czech, and probably some English and Irish). I feel an insanely strong pull to Scandinavian countries, which is mystifying -- I literally felt like I was home when I went to Iceland. I'm wary of making too much of heritage, though, because I've seen it quickly turn otherwise-reasonable people into racist dickwads.

And there you have it, my scintillating confessional. Your turn!

(Come on, you knew there was some round-robin, pass it on, tag you're it, chain letter love to be shared here, right?)

Holla in the comments if you want to get your self-absorption on, Gentle Reader. Cause I have a sneaking suspicion you do.

It's Hard Because It's Important

(Post title courtesy of a wise quote from my old work buddy Katherine ... If by some stretch you're reading this, I miss ya, K-dawg!)

I am a recovering self-injurer. This is not the sort of thing you readily admit to your playgroup, or your employer, or even most friends and family, but I am admitting it here. Partially because I think it is important to validate the fact that there are grown women, parenting young children, who struggle with this issue, not just teenage girls, and partially because I am writing a novel that deals with self-harm as a theme, and am finding it unbelievably difficult to craft in a way that isn't clinical, cliched, or sensationalistic. Even as I type this, I can feel myself mentally dislocating from the subject, in a kind of self-protective instinct.

Sily me, here I thought it would be at least intellectually, if not emotionally, easy to write about, especially in a fictional, as opposed to an autobiographical, context. I mean, surely a person who has first-hand knowledge of an experience that baffles the uninitiated would be able to finely articulate the nuances of why they did it and what it felt like, right?

Ironically enough, no, because, in order to do so, I have to resurrect the visceral memory of a clearly maladaptive urge, a process that feels at best uncomfortable and at worst deeply treacherous. It's not merely discussing the plot or revealing the linkage between the narrative and my own life that feels threatening; I can do either fairly matter-of-factly, sans triggering. But to reach back into my own head and body to extricate gripping, interior descriptions of the rush of relief, the sting of self-loathing, the numb, floaty sensation of detachment, the confusing calm (to say nothing of the physical reality involved!), without succumbing to the temptation to re-enact or dissociate into an anxious, incoherent blur? That's godawful hard work. So hard, in fact, that it's equally tempting to chicken out and revert to sloppy, lame portrayals straight out of a circa 1985 afterschool special. Or just scrap the subplot all together.

I have a lot more I could say, but I think this subject is going to have to be tackled in small doses.

Mommy Wars, Introvert Style (Or, Welcome to the Smackdown in My Head)

It's almost midnight and I should be packing and/or asleep, considering I have a long travel day ahead of me, but ...

I feel a bit guilty about my last post, which was crafted on massive sleep deprivation in a moment of frustration and crankiness. It smacked of self-indulgent "Waaah!" and didn't really capture all the nuances of what I'm struggling with. And sure, self-indulgent bitcharoo is cathartic and necessary, but I'd much rather get the nuances down, too. (Says the woman who's been working on the same novel since 2001.)

I think I often come across fairly confident (some might say "strident"?) about the fact that stay at home parenting ain't for me, no sir, no way. And yes, generally speaking, I'm a shy workaholic who likes nothing better than to hole herself up in a room with an iTunes playlist and a creative project and get 'er done, sans toddler interruption. 

But there's another part of me that poignantly, painfully wishes I could be a stay at home parent and thrive on it. Not do it because I'm out of work, not do it because my childcare money ran out, not do it because it's the Right Thing To Do (TM), but because I enjoy it and find it meaningful. I read the blogs of people who do this. I have friends who feel this. I know their lives are not all sunshine and gelato and mindful tranquility, but still I savor their words and think: Why can't I be like them? What the frickety-frack is wrong with me?

I know the answer is Not a single thing, but, oh, it makes me wistful. And so I self-flagellate, telling myself, If you just tried harder. If you just cultivated gratitude. If you just made lists of fun activities. If you just figured out yet one more museum or playdate or library storytime you could get to on public transit. If you just surrendered to domesticity. If you just cared about your daughter more (that's the big gun, I save it for days when I feel I reaaaally need the all-over application of guilt varnish).

But the truth is, I tried all those things. Mercy, mercy, did I try them. And still I struggled. With cabin fever. With my lack of driver's license. With the amount of TV my kiddo wound up watching. With my mood disorder flare-ups.  With resentment of my partner's job. With rainy weather. With lack of money. With the wild, wacky combo of extremely introverted mother (aka Me) and extremely extroverted child (how the heck did two Myers-Briggs INFP's create one of those?). With my own buried aspirations. The list goes on and on.

Take any one of those things, and the situation is manageable. Lump them all together, and it seems dang near insurmountable. In the interest of perspective, I try to remind myself that most people I know who successfully and sanely stay at home to parent are not broke, vision-impaired, mental-health-challenged former novelists trying to make a comeback after not publishing for seven years. 

And yet, I read the beautiful, heartfelt blogs, and internally sob. Goddamn it, I want to be the kind of mother who knits scarves, and bakes bread, and plans elaborate craft projects, and scrubs her toilet more than once a season. I wish I could be her, and truly feel fulfilled with that rubric framing my existence. Seriously. If you said to me right now, "I'll trade you all your creative yearnings and aspirations and angst for the ability to be joyful in a quiet, quaint life," man, oh, man, I'd be tempted to hand over all my novel drafts and get crackin' on the terlet-sanitizing.

In the end, though, I wouldn't be able to do it. Because I know myself. Because my work is as much a part of my identity as motherhood. Because financial independence is vitally important to me. Because the world in my head (yes, I have one!) is just as real as the one here where the kitchen floor needs to be mopped and the child is squealing delightedly, "Mama, I pee on Daddy chair! Again!"

I guess the million-dollar question, then, becomes: how do I integrate those two desires in a way that doesn't shoot my sleep cycles or my bank account to hell? How do I give them both validation and space in my life without feeling like one gets short shrift? (I'm ashamed to say that sometimes the piece that suffers is my family life, not the other way around.)

Like any good bipolar bear (yes, that is the worst pun in the universe, but it's late and I'm a certified dork), I know how to do extremes. I know how to not write at all (witness the year I was in acute crisis, or the first year after my daughter's birth -- the only times in my life when I literally did not care if I ever composed another sentence again). I also know how to write 12 hours a day, barely stopping to eat or take the dog out (the vast majority of my first two novels were written in two-month stints that way). But compromising in the name of balance and equilibrium?

Meh, that's for wimps, my workaholic side snickers. Only other people do that. (She apparently hasn't gotten the memo that we aren't teenagers sitting up in our room with oodles of free time, listening to a steady diet of Kate Bush and Tori Amos, typing at a card table, anymore.)

Meanwhile, my inner Waldorf goddess/keeper of the hearth/Frigga devotee is whispering soothingly, "Oh, you just work on that book when you get a few spare minutes at naptime, or when Fearless Husband does you a favor and takes the girl with him to Fred Meyer. It's only a few more years before she'll be in school and you can write from 8 to 3 without having to declare bankruptcy from childcare bills. Unless, of course, you decide to homeschool, which is really the better option if you don't want your precious angel to turn into a corporate drone or a midriff- barin' hootchie."

(Hmm, you don't think I have a touch of dissociative identity disorder, now do ya, Gentle Reader?)

Yes, this is the dialogue that goes on constantly in my head. I am seriously stumped as to how to handle my vastly competing impulses. (To put it more boldly: Heeeeelp!)

Maybe I should start with picking apart the cultural imperatives and the self-deprecating scoldings from the true desires? 

Or maybe I should just finish packing and get to bed. 

A Memo From the "It Really Shouldn't Be This Screwy, Should It?" Files

This morning I just withdrew the piddly remains of my retirement account so I could buy myself a few last months of childcare to write and look for work. Once that runs out (right around my birthday in April, I'm guessing -- what a lovely present!), I either have to give up, or start putting the fees on my credit card. (Yes, they actually take credit cards at her school, believe it or not.)

Now, I can hear some of you suggesting, "Why not just stay home with her while looking for work and doing your writing at night?" Ahh, Gentle Reader, we have been down that path before, and tis not pretty. Do y'all have any idea how impossible it is to actively search for work (a full-time job in and of itself) and go on interviews with no childcare? Never mind the potential pickle of how to hastily procure said childcare should you actually (please, God) score that elusive creative or nonprofit job.

And as for writing at night after the man gets home ... I know others do it, and I've tried, but the results and the process have proved to be a mixed bag. By the end of a day of kiddo-wranglin', honestly, I'm fried and in need of a mental break, not a cerebral challenge. On top of that, my mood stability hinges upon regular and consistent sleep, and my husband has to get up for work at 3 am, so coming to bed at 2:30 after an evening of rushed family time, dinner, and a few hours of work just doesn't, well, work. 

But it's better than nothing! my guilty conscience prods. You do what you can with what you've got, right?

Well, sure. But what kind of role model am I for my daughter if I spend ten hours a day resentful and unhappy, wishing I could work, waiting for her father to burst in the door at four o'clock and save me (both literally and figuratively)? What kind of relationship do I have with my partner if we're hounded by lopsided dissonance, one of us working his tail off all day long to provide, wishing he didn't have to pull overtime, the other killing time at home grumbling about how she wishes she were in his place, with intellectual stimulation and a twice-monthly paycheck? (The last time I got a work-related check with my name on it, this past fall, it was the first time in almost five years. I darn near cried, it made me so happy.)

And lest you think that this rant is just about my own personal fulfillment, we really do need for both of us to be working. I feel almost shameful saying that -- like the frugal police is gonna bust in any second and yell, "Nooooo you don't! You have lights on! You have food in the fridge! You pay your rent on time! Whatchu talkin' bout, Willis?"

Trust me, frugal police, I am incredibly grateful for those things, especially in this tanking economy. However ...

(ready for the heresy? wait for it, now ...) 

Being a stay-at-home parent, for me, is not worth living on the edge. I don't see how it does my family any good if it means we have no savings, no retirement, no money for her college education, zero ability to buy a house anytime in the next twenty years. To say nothing of the fact that, if my husband lost his job today, we would be homeless in a month, tops. Those are hardly the self-absorbed luxuries (McMansion, expensive trips, electronic toys) perennially trotted out as misguided reasons for needing to maintain two incomes; those are real, concrete issues of concern.

I say that, of course, knowing that it's entirely possible (perhaps probable) that going into debt to look for work and finish a novel will screw up our future even worse.

It just seems wrong that these struggles should even have to exist. That with a college degree, publication credits, and an "impressive" (this from the best boutique temp agency in town) resume, I haven't been able to find a full-time job (any job -- I've applied for everything from high-end editorial to grocery cashier positions, so I ain't exactly picky!) for over a year. That even though we can't afford childcare anymore without putting it on a piece of plastic, and theoretically, if not realistically, qualify for Section 8, we're considered too "high income" to receive DHS childcare vouchers. That even though I collected SSI benefit as a child, have 20/80 vision in my better eye, and can neither safely nor legally drive, I'm not considered vision-impaired by the state commission for the blind, or disabled by Social Security. Is it just me, or does this all seem a little funked up?

Meanwhile, I pray that either Obama will save the day, or I'll get into an MFA program where student loans can fund my terminal degree and childcare under more sensible terms than Citibank's. Preferably both.