Geekamama

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Taming my inner toddler

It’s started.  Kiddo’s easygoing first couple months of being a one-year-old are giving way to tantrums.  At the moment they’re kind of amusing, but I don’t expect I’ll see them that way forever.

For now, it seems to be little things that set him off, and there’s even some logic behind them.  The other night, he was playing with his shape sorter.  The circle and star are easy for him to fit through the holes, but that darn square!  There are only four ways to orient it, compared to the FIVE ways the star can be positioned!  And don’t even start about the triangle!  After a couple of unsuccessful tries I could see that he was getting upset, until finally he shoved aside all the remaining shapes and stormed off.  I tried to coax him back to work on it together with me, but he wouldn’t be consoled.  If he couldn’t get it easily, he’d rather do something else–anything else.

Suddenly I flashed back to earlier that week when I’d been struggling with a coding problem at work.  I knew what I needed to do to address it, but I could tell it was going to be a lot of work and I wasn’t sure my approach was the best way.  I was tired of scouring web pages, searching for a clearer explanation of how to do it.  Again and again I’d try something, only to find it not working the way I thought it would.  In frustration, I kept turning to something shinier and less stressful.  I got a lot of internet surfing done that afternoon, but not a lot of the work I was supposed to be doing.  I thought I’d long since grown out of tantrums, but it seems there’s a toddler lurking inside just waiting for a reason to throw a hissy fit.

Now that I’m an adult, I know how to get on top of my emotions, and most of the time when I get upset I can stop the feelings from overwhelming me.  But Kiddo is still very young and his coping skills are very immature (as expected at this age).  Some of the ways he deals with frustration are amusing to watch.  I try to stifle my giggles, because even worse than being frustrated is when you’re frustrated and others don’t take you seriously.  But sometimes, it’s hard to keep a straight face.

The other morning he was playing with his stuffed seahorse that plays music when you press on its belly.  Kiddo has gotten it to work before, but that morning he wasn’t pressing in the right place, and the music wouldn’t turn on.  In frustration he pushed the toy away and stood up, crying.  I tried to fix the problem by turning the music on and handing it back to him.  No luck; he was mad at the seahorse now and didn’t want to play with it.  In fact, he’d show that seahorse who was boss!  He grabbed it and threw in down into his toy basket.  Unfortunately, it bounced out of the basket and fell behind it, out of reach.

He stopped crying.  He turned to me with an inquisitive look, and calmly pointed to the toy, asking me to get it back for him.  Aha, I thought, he’s ready to play nicely again.  I retrieved it and handed it back.  Whereupon Kiddo picked up his tantrum right where he’d left off!

Then it clicked for me.  He didn’t want it back so he could play with it.  He wanted it back because he was trying to deal with these emotions, and the only way he could do so was to physically work them out.  Like when his push wagon got stuck and he couldn’t take it out on the wagon itself, so he started flinging around a nearby pile of shoes instead.  Or when he was upset about having to wait for his breakfast, and he wandered around the kitchen until he finally had to settle for just throwing himself down on the floor.

While I no longer hurl things (including myself) around anymore when I’m upset, I do understand how sometimes it’s not enough to sit down and get over it.  Sometime I too have to do something physical to bleed off the frustration and adrenaline that has built up in response to a situation.  Usually my husband bears the brunt of my verbal ranting, and that’s all it  takes for me to calm down again.  But I’ve got coping skills Kiddo doesn’t, including the ability to speak my feelings or type furiously in a chat window.

I fully expected that we would get to the tantrum stage eventually, and I figured we’d learn ways to cope with it.  What I didn’t expect was that my son’s tantrums would show me a few things about how I handle my own frustrations.


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It’s what you are, not what you do

The transition from being a family of two to being a family of three was one of the most challenging things my husband and I have done so far.  Those first months were full of doubts and uncertainties.  But then when Kiddo was a few months old, parenting seemed to get a little easier.  It was no longer this big, huge, scary cloud of millions of choices.  Things started feeling more natural.  My husband and I gained more confidence in ourselves and in our ability to shape this wailing creature into a functioning member of society.

Around that same time, my self-identity began to change as well.  If you had asked me in August 2009 to describe myself, I would have said I was a software engineer, married with a new baby.  A year later, I would have reversed that order and put the parenting part at the top of the list.  Of course it’s a context-sensitive thing; if I were introduced to our company’s CEO, I’d refer to my job first without even thinking about it.  But in casual conversation, or when filling out my profile for some social website, I’m a mother first.  (This does backfire if I don’t think carefully about my wording.  In a popular site’s blog directory, my first crack at my blog description said I was a “mom to a toddler and a software engineer.”  Kiddo is a clever young mister, but that’s pushing it.)

So, what changed that brought about this reversal?  In a nutshell, my attitude about parenting.  I’d finally internalized that parenting is not something to do, like reading or cultivating mushrooms.  It’s something to be.  It’s what I am.  I’m a Mother.

Think about the difference implied when someone you’ve just met says “I bake” compared to “I’m a baker.”  The first one implies a more casual association with the activity, putting it on par with all the other activities that fill up your time, including going to the dentist or going for a run.  The second phrase conveys a sense of authority and ownership.  It’s an integral part of who they are.  Someone who casually bakes could whip up a fine batch of chocolate chip cookies from a recipe.  Someone who’s a baker would be able to read the recipe, instinctively know that something sounds off with the proportions of butter and sugar, and tweak it accordingly to produce something even better.

Technically I was a parent from the moment we first found out we were expecting a baby (in fact, a few weeks before that).  But like any activity, parenting is something that takes some practice and some getting used to.  There are lots of mental adjustments, as you break hundreds of old habits and routines and lay in new ones.  It’s not necessarily as instinctive as we’d like; consider all the stories of people who have fathered or given birth to children but then end up neglecting them or worse.  But I’d like to believe that most parents have made a choice, albeit a subconscious one, to do the best they can in caring for their child.  It’s tough, and for many people there’s a lot of questioning and self-doubt.  But then one day, something happens or someone says something, and they realize that, like the Velveteen Rabbit, they’ve finally become Real.

Now, when faced with a mammoth pile of shirts in the toddler section of Target, I know which ones to get: the orange ones.  In less than a second I can tell the difference between his “I’m hurt” cry, which gets an immediate response, and his “I’m frustrated” cry, which might need nothing but the space to work it out for himself.  And when I’m reading books or scouring the internet for advice, I can filter out suggestions that don’t seem quite right for us, modify others to better fit for our family, or even go completely off-book if necessary.  I don’t expect that I’ll always have the answers, but I feel a lot more confident in my ability to search for them.


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New shoes

This weekend was the first in months when we didn’t have anything planned.  However, Kiddo’s shoes were worn through at the toes, and my husband had been awake all night dealing with work problems, so we decided to have a Mom-Kid day at the mall and give my husband a chance to get caught up on his sleep.

Our first stop was Stride Rite where we picked up two new pairs: one for indoor wear, and one pair that is a little sturdier and more waterproof.

After that, Kiddo and I went to McDonald’s for his first-ever Happy Meal.  The place was crowded with families (it was Saturday, after all) so rather than fight for a highchair, we took a small booth in the back and sat together on the bench.  It was easier to put his nuggets and fries next to him on the seat.  By the way, the cut on his forehead is healing up nicely.

Kiddo was so sleepy during lunch that I thought he was going to nod off in the stroller.  But he perked up afterward–maybe he just needed the food–so we went upstairs to the Kids’ Cove.  This was our first time in a public playspace and I wasn’t quite sure of the proper parent etiquette.  So I just followed Kiddo around, trying to not be too overprotective but also trying to keep him from getting too run down by the bigger kids.

 

We took a break and went downstairs for a snack, and to wait for my husband to arrive.  Once we were reunited, we went back upstairs to check out the play place again.

 

Before long, we could see that Kiddo was drooping, so we bundled him into the stroller and did some shopping, hoping he’d fall asleep.  It didn’t take long.

We ended the day with dinner at Matt’s Rotisserie in Redmond Town Center.  While we were there, a bunch of cars from the local exotics club were driving through.  One of the organizers told us it was for a music video.  It was pretty neat watching them all pass by below us.


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A day in the life of a geekamama

It’s 7 a.m.  It’s still dark. I wake up.

I might have been woken up by the beeping alarm clock.  This is fine; I can snooze for a few more minutes, or I can drag myself out of bed into the shower.  Or, I might have been woken up by my son whimpering in his bedroom.  Most days, this is the case.  Ideally, I’d be showered and dressed before Kiddo wakes up, so that I can focus on getting him ready.  This has happened maybe a dozen times in the past year that I’ve been back at work.  Usually he wakes up either before I can get to the shower or while I’m showering, and my husband has to wake up and keep an eye on him until I’m ready.  On rare occasions I’m on my own, and I confess that I cope by skipping the shower and hoping that I don’t have to deal with many people that day.

It’s 8:45 a.m.  Time for Kiddo’s breakfast.  On weekdays we’re pretty consistent: yogurt and cereal.  I toss another yogurt into my tote bag to eat at my desk later; usually I don’t have time to enjoy my own morning meal while also feeding my toddler.  He’s getting more adept at spoon-feeding himself, so in a few months maybe we can yogurt it up together.  After breakfast Kiddo gets to play in the living room while I zip around packing up our needs for the day.  Extra shirts for daycare, a reference book I brought home from work, a birthday card I need to remember to mail.  With that done, I gather up two pairs of shoes, two jackets, and one toddler, and get both of us ready to leave.

It’s 9:20 a.m.  Or possibly 9:45.  We toddle down the hall to say goodbye to Daddy, who has gone back to bed for a little more precious sleep.  Hugs and kisses, a quick confirmation of plans for that evening, and then we wave goodbye and head downstairs to the garage.  There’s a small battle of wills over whether Kiddo has to hold my hand in the garage as we walk to the car; depending on who wins, he either goes willingly into his carseat or we have a quick wrestling match.  When he’s buckled in at last, we blow kisses and I walk around to the driver’s seat and buckle myself in.

It’s 9:50 a.m… or possibly later.  (Or if it’s a Wednesday, much earlier, because Kiddo has Spanish class at 9:15.)  The car ride to Kiddo’s day care has taken about 25 minutes.  We like to sing on the way there–rather, I do the singing and Kiddo does the appreciation.  “Itsy Bitsy Spider” is a favorite, although recently he’s shown a preference for “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”  At the day care I walk him to his classroom, hand over the supplies we brought, and then wave goodbye.  This used to cue up tears (from him, not me), but now my departure is no big deal.

I drive to work, 10 minutes on a good traffic day, 15 to 20 if it’s not.  At last, three hours after waking up, I can eat my breakfast!  I make my plan for the day.  Check my email.  Change the plan.

It’s 11:15 a.m.  One of my co-workers stops by and I command-H to hide the browser.  Since I’m at the computer all day long, I tend to keep a window open to my favorite websites.  It’s how I keep myself motivated when faced with tedious tasks.  Just 15 more minutes of this, and then you can have five minutes of web time.

My cell phone rings.  It’s the dentist, or the hairdresser, or the spa, confirming my appointment for tomorrow.  I’ll be there, I tell them.

It’s 2 p.m. and I’m off to a team meeting.  I grab a Diet Coke and a notepad and spend the next half hour (or hour) jotting notes.  Sometimes they’re even relevant to whatever the meeting’s about.

It’s 3 p.m. and I’m back in my office.  Notice how I haven’t yet mentioned eating lunch?  I’ve forgotten about it until just now.

My office phone rings.  It’s the day care, calling to let me know that Kiddo has fallen down (again) and he’s fine but there will be an incident report for me to sign (again).  I thank them for calling, because one of the things I really love about this center is how great they are at communicating with parents.  If it’s one of my husband’s nights for pickup, I pass along the message to him.  We are united in our lack of surprise.

It’s 5:30 p.m.  I probably haven’t finished everything that was on my plan for the day.  If it’s Tuesday or Thursday, I save my code, toss things in my tote bag, and head for the garage and then the day care.  Other days, I start thinking about dinner.  We have a system: whichever parent is not picking Kiddo up from day care is in charge of dinner that night, whether that means cooking or visiting a favorite restaurant.  Before Kiddo entered our lives, we went out for dinner at least four out of five weeknights.  That was because we tended to stay at work until 7 or 7:30 p.m., and by the time we finally got home from work it was very late for starting to cook.  Now we leave work earlier, which makes it easier to make dinner at home.

It’s 6:45 p.m. on Tuesday/Thursday, or a little later on other nights.  Home at last!  Time to stop thinking about work, if I can.  Most nights after I get home, I have enough housekeeping and mothering to do that I don’t have time to log on and check email or work remotely like I once did.

We play a little bit.  We make dinner.  We all sit down together and eat.  Kiddo has blessed us by being a really great eater.  He usually has a smaller portion of  whatever we’re having, although sometimes we do a little food editing before he gets his.  If we’ve got leftovers for him from a previous night and it’s taking a long time to make dinner, one of us might feed Kiddo early, and then let him play while we eat.  We probably don’t clean up after ourselves just yet–that can wait until after Kiddo is asleep.

It’s… whatever time we finish dinner.  It’s either bath time or play time for Kiddo, followed by bedtime.  My husband changes Kiddo into his pajamas while I pick up some toys, refill the water cup, and grab tonight’s bedtime stories.  The guys walk around upstairs turning off lights in the living room, hallway and the overhead one in the bedroom.  When that’s done,  Kiddo comes back to me, and the guys say goodnight.  We read a few books, turn off the bookcase light, nurse for a few minutes, and then he goes into his crib.  My husband and I listen to his babbling over the baby monitor until he falls asleep.

It’s 11:30, or midnight, or possibly a little later.  Husband and I have been watching TV downstairs, but I’m starting to doze off.  I head upstairs, brush my teeth, and fall into bed.

It’s 4 a.m., give or take half an hour.  Kiddo wakes up and cries, and refuses to fall back asleep.  I stagger down the hall and nurse him for a few minutes.  We’re hoping to drop this nursing session before long, but at 4 a.m. I’m often too tired to go through the trials of convincing Kiddo he doesn’t need it.  I really should know better, but… it’s 4 a.m.  Fortunately for me, this one’s usually pretty quick.  Back to bed for each of us.

It’s 7 a.m.  It’s still dark.  I wake up.


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I think never is enough, yeah, never is enough

    I never had to spend a summer planting trees
    I never worked my way through a forest inch by inch, doubled over on my hands and knees
    I never spent a single day in retail
    Telling people what they want to hear, telling people anything to make a sale…

–“Never is Enough,” Barenaked Ladies

 

There are a lot of things I wish I had more time to do in my life.  Forget the basics, like spending more time with my Kiddo and husband, or keeping the house Martha-Stewart-snazzy; I’ve got a sizable list of pastimes where I’ve love to direct my creative energies.  Here’s a few of the ones I think about most often.

Cardmaking
My friend Jennifer is a demonstrator for Stampin’ Up.  I went to a SU party at her house a couple years ago and not only did I have a great time (I usually feel awkward at product pitch parties because I rarely buy things) but I also picked up the bug for card crafting.  I attempted my wedding save-the-date cards and invitations on my own and they turned out okay, but not quite what I was hoping for.  One of the neat things about cardmaking with Stampin’ Up is that even someone like me, a crappy artist with a poor eye for color combinations, can turn out something that looks pretty darn good.  I had a great idea a couple weeks ago for how to set up a cool card-crafting space.  Then I realized that this requires both space in my home and space in my calendar, neither of which I have at the moment.

Knitting and crocheting
In theory, this is something I could do in front of the TV.  There’s a pattern for a Kiddo-sized hat in my yarn bag, and yarn for this project purchased and waiting to be used.  But most nights, by the time the boy is tucked away in bed, the laundry is started, and the dishes are done, I barely have enough energy to focus on the show I’m trying to watch.  It’s a good thing the pattern included more than one size, because he’s already outgrown the practice hat I made last year.

Exercising
Creative?  Maybe not at first glance.  But a couple years ago when I was able to get to the gym on a regular basis, I found it was a great time to let my body go on autopilot and my brain kick into high gear.  Mainly I was trying to distract myself from the ticker on the treadmill, but I found some great insights on problems I’d pushed to the back of my brain.  The additional physical benefits were a nice bonus–and sad to say, something I’m really lacking these days.

 

On the other hand, there are a few activities that might seem like they’d be up my alley, but as the Barenaked Ladies put it, “I never want to do that stuff.”  Nothing implied against anyone who does enjoy one or more of these–if you love it, that’s wonderful!  It’s just not for me.

Scrapbooking
It’s similar to cardmaking and I get to show off the finished product, so I should be all over this.  And yet… I’m a terrible photographer, I don’t save keepsakes like I’d need to do, and I don’t know where I’d put the books when I’m done.  It’s far easier to flip through a digital slideshow on the computer or better yet, upload my photos to a digital frame I can set up on my desk at work.  I tried keeping a baby book for Kiddo and stopped writing in it when he was about five months old.  Before I start doing anything resembling scrapbooking, I feel I owe it to him to at least finish out his first year.

Sewing, embroidering, and other needlework
I’m not sure why yarnwork appeals to me while needlework doesn’t.  Maybe because hand-stitching requires good eyesight, and because setting up to sew with a machine seems like a lot of work.  Modern sewing machines are probably much easier to tote around than the heavy Singer my mom had when I was a kid, but it made enough of an impression on me that unless I became a stay-at-home mom with plenty of time on my hands, I probably wouldn’t get into this craft.

Competing in a triathlon (all three legs)
I’m not much of a swimmer.  It took me years to get out of the basic class when we took swimming lessons in elementary school.  Biking might be interesting if I were out enjoying a casual afternoon ride, but after seeing two separate crashes in the same race right in front of me a couple years ago, I’m too skittish to attempt riding for speed.  But hey, the running part I can handle just fine!  I did a relay with some friends a couple years ago, and that was enough to satisfy my triathlon leanings.

Getting a tattoo (the permanent kind)
My understanding is that needles are involved.  I’m no longer phobic of needles–heck, I’ve even given blood voluntarily–but I’m not willing to be repeatedly stuck with them if I have the option to do something else.  Same thing applies for acupuncture.  Just thinking about it gives me the willies.  Excuse me now while I go over there and shudder violently.

Jumping out of a fully functioning airplane or off a perfectly sound bridge.
Nope.  Just nope.  It’s not the heights, it’s the falling.  Not gonna happen.  Not even for a million dollars, Phil.


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Project Sunset

I’ve got a project for someone.  You’ll need a camera and a computer, and some programming skills, and a web site that can host about 400 photos.

A couple weeks ago I was driving from my office to downtown Bellevue shortly after sunset.  The sky and the buildings looked like a typical autumn evening around here.  And that got me wondering what exactly it was, other than my knowledge of the calendar and my view of the trees, that made me think it’s an autumn evening as opposed to any other season?  I figured it was probably something about the angle or quality of the light that did it, but since the sun had crossed the horizon a little while earlier it wasn’t direct light or shadows.  Whatever it was, it looked cold.  I was glad I had a warm car and gloves.

We take a lot of very subtle cues from the environment that help us determine where we are in the daily or yearly cycle.  Go take a nap in the park on some nice summer day.  When you wake up, don’t look at your watch, just look around you at the shadows.  Odds are, you’ll probably have a rough idea of how long you were napping based on how they’ve changed.  Most of us don’t deliberately try to learn this, but you see the world every day, and after several years of living year-round in the same place, you get an innate feeling for when the leaves will sprout or change color, and how long it takes shadows to crawl across the floor.

I didn’t think about this very much until about ten years ago, when I visited South Africa for a week in June.  We got off the plane around 10 a.m. local time, but as we drove out of the city into the more rural areas, something felt really off.  Logically I knew it was morning, but my brain was convinced it was six or eight hours later.  I’m sure part of it was jet lag and the unfamiliar countryside, but there was something different about the way the light was hitting in the Southern Hemisphere that just looked out of whack.  I was aware that we were in a different season and therefore the length of the days and nights would not be the same as what I’d just traveled from.  But I couldn’t figure out why I’d have the sensation that east and west were opposite of what I was used to, or that we were a couple hours away from sunset rather than a couple hours past sunrise.  Over the years since that visit, I’ve tried a couple times to work out the geometry of the problem in my head but I only end up confusing myself, convinced both ways at once.

Anyway, the project.  Set up a camera pointed at a fixed location outside–preferably one without too many natural cues like trees and grass.  Find the sunset tables for the next 12 months.  Program your camera to take a picture a set interval after sunset every day, say something in the range of 15 to 30 minutes.  It needs to be after sunset so that ambient light is reflected rather than direct, but I think the priciple would also work if you take a picture a set number of minutes prior to sunrise, just as long as the sun is below the horizon.  Then upload that daily picture to a web site where I (and anyone else who’s curious) can compare pictures taken several weeks or months apart, and see whether there really is a difference between the look of a spring evening and a fall evening.


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Greetings

I’m not entirely sure why I’m starting this blog.  Do I have something to say that I think the world would be interested in?  Do I have some specialized niche knowledge that others are looking for?  Do I have nifty hobbies that photograph well?  Not really, nope.

I’m just a mom, and a software geek, and a wife, and a woman.  I have the same daily struggles that I’m sure many others do: what are we going to make for dinner tonight?  Will there be time to finish this project before I have to leave for daycare pickup?  Does my new boss have expectations that I’m not sure I can meet?

Apparently I’m also an Asker of Many Questions.

I grew up in Montana and studied journalism, eventually completing my degree in 1995.  I like to put words together in just the right way.  After graduating, I took a good look around at the opportunities available and realized that hey, this is a pretty competitive field, and I’m not sure I really want to be a reporter after all.  What I really wanted to be was an editor.  Proper grammar and spelling make me happy.  Words have meanings, y’know!  Funny thing, there aren’t a lot of entry-level postions for editors. 

However, this was in the mid-1990s, and there was something huge on the horizon: the World Wide Web.  The summer after I graduated was when URLs first started showing up in television commercials.  I had the luxury of a little time to play with, and decided what the heck, I’ll take some nondegree graduate courses in computer science.  Next thing I know, the department head was strongly encouraging me to turn that into an actual graduate degree.  Me?  The girl with the journalism degree?  Yeah, me. 

I didn’t set out to become a software tester.  I sort of fell into it when I didn’t quite fit the other disciplines for which I was interviewed.  In 1999 when I entered the real world, I was convinced that I’d been miscategorized and after a year or two I’d steer myself into where I through I really belonged.  Except something happened.  I discovered that a lot of the editing skills I’d polished in J-School could also be applied to software.  In a way, I’m an editor of not just text, but of how you, the customer, interact with an application.  The same gut feeling that told me that an article was clunky and difficult to understand can also be used to tell me that a program is uninviting and non-intuitive to work with.  The nit-pickiness that helped me place commas correctly also helps me line up buttons and pixels according to standards.

Meanwhile, my life outside work was going through some changes.  I divorced one husband and eventually married another.  As often happens, that marriage of two people morphed into a family of three people.  Now I have a toddler whose smile can light up my morning as well as a partner whose hugs can round out my evenings.

I also have a messy house.  I’m told this happens with toddlers.  And husbands.

I want to talk about the challenges of dealing with managing a family and a full-time job.  I like to write, and while I have other outlets for sharing with close friends, there’s something in me craving a more public audience.  So, here I am and here I go.  Still not entirely sure what I’m about, but open to the challenge of figuring that out as we go.