You want to do what?!?

The application has been sitting on my computer's desktop for two weeks now. I look at it every day and contemplate filling it out and submitting it. I think about what I will say in the statement of purpose, why working towards this additional degree will change my life and how the work I intend to do will contribute to a larger goal. But, do I want to do it? Do I want to, at 40, go back to school again?

The last time I went back to school, I was on the cusp of 30. I got a master's degree then and while it was hell doing school full time, I really enjoyed it. Those were two of the best years of my life. Now, here I am ten years later thinking that what I really need is a doctorate. Is it insanity? Is it a midlife crisis? Is it just the nature of working in higher education?

I deal all the time with people who have PhDs. They aren't ALL eggheads living in an ivory tower. Some of them are actually my friends and they assure me that, yes, I'm definitely smart enough to do it. It's really more about stamina, commitment and persistence. Do I really want to commit so much time and energy to getting another degree? Why would I want to do it?

In the class-driven society in which I work, having a doctorate is definitely an asset. It opens the door to more career possibilities. It certainly makes it easier to deal with faculty if they realize that I've had to write a dissertation too. But, to the outside world, where most of my work is focused, it really makes not one bit of difference.

On the other hand, I love school. I've always loved school. In an earlier post I talked about begging to go to school when I was three. I truly enjoy learning, reading, discussion and writing. After I got my master's I worked at a number of jobs while scheming how I might come back and work at the University, because this is where I feel most comfortable. And, if I came back, I would be able to take classes for fun. But I've been working here for close to five years now and I've never taken a class for fun. Instead, I'm thinking about applying to a formal degree program.

Isn't it enough for me to work full time in the midst of all of this learning, taking a fun class every now and again? I mean, I do work full time plus I have two small children. If I take on one more official responsibility, will I just lose my mind?

To help me decide whether to fill out the application and set this whole process in motion, I took a class this semester in the program where I would be getting this doctorate. Overall, it's been a lot of work and a lot of juggling to figure out how to get everything done. There were weeks when I dreaded it and didn't know how I was going to get all of the assignments finished - not to mention finding time to do all of the reading for the class. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the way it made my brain work. It was exciting to think about this subject matter and to see how it applied to things that were going on in my life and work. It was exciting to see the possibilities of doing more research in this area.

Yesterday was the last class of the semester. I turned in all of my assignments and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I came home and made lists of things that needed to be done because I had neglected them all semester. Last night I slept like the dead. And then this morning, I was right back at it. I started checking the spring schedule to see what class I might want to take next. I couldn't even help myself. Looks like I'll have to take the plunge.

Holy Wow!!

What an amazing gift to my girls and their generation that they will not grow up thinking that a person of color can't become President of the United States.

The Pizza Box

This summer, my family spent a long weekend on Martha's Vineyard. Traveling with small children is always stressful and this weekend was no different. We had spent the night before the ferry ride at my brother's house in northern RI. We had ordered pizza for dinner and there was a lot left over the next day.

I thought it would be wise to bring some pizza with us to eat for lunch before we got on the ferry. We would be spending enough money once we got to the island so it would be nice to have a free lunch. Also, my kids often have trouble eating when we travel because they get too excited, but they will eat pizza anywhere, anytime.

We packed the car in the morning - suitcase, diaper bag, backpack with bathing suits and towels, laptop and power cord (what?), extra diapers, Thomas the Tank Engine snuggle pillow, stroller - and then I come out of the house with the pizza box. My husband looked at me as if I'd suddenly sprouted another head, and perhaps the head of a gecko or some alien thing and he said, "What's that?"

"Lunch," I sid, "Then we don't have to stop to buy anything." I felt very proud of myself and confident that this was a great idea.

"I am not putting that in the car! I am not carrying a pizza box to Martha's Vineyard!" said the spouse, suddenly fuming. I don't really get why he is so mad, after all, I just saved us at least $30. I said, "Well, I thought we'd eat it before we get on the ferry so you won't have to carry it to the Vineyard." I put the box in the car and we head for Woods Hole.

The girls were excited that we were going to get to ride on a big boat to an island - okay, the baby had no idea what was going on but the four year old was definitely psyched. She asked a million questions about the ferry and the hotel we would be staying at. She wanted me to tell her, again and again, the name of the place we were going. "Martha's Vineyard," I told her. She repeated back, "Northers Vineyard." Close enough, I figured.

We had decided when we planned the trip a month before that we didn't want to bring the car to the island. We'd be able to walk everywhere or take a bus if we had to. So, we parked at the Sunshine Lot at Woods Hole, where we were to leave the car for the weekend. It was aptly named since there are no trees in sight and the sun beat down on us mercilessly as we waited for the shuttle bus to take us to the ferry .

We got out of the car and began to unload - stroller, Thomas the Tank Engine snuggle pillow, extra diapers, laptop and power cord (seriously?), backpack with bathing suits and towels, diaper bag, suitcase, and finally, the pizza box. My husband gave me that look again like he had no idea who I was or why I was standing next to him. He made a little growling noise in his throat and said to me, under his breath so the kids couldn't hear, "We are not taking that f*ing pizza box." "Sure we are," I said, with a little more confidence than I feel.

By the time the bus came, there were several people waiting to get on. We had to negotiate all of our luggage and belongings - some things went into the storage area under the bus but the rest we had to haul onto the bus with the two children. Of course, the pizza box had to come onto the bus with us and not only that but the spouse had to hold it because, of course, the girls wanted to sit on me. So there was my poor, tolerant husband sitting on the bus, muttering oaths under his breath and looking around, convinced that the other passengers were staring at us because he was holding a pizza box and what sane person carries a pizza box onto the bus that brings you to the ferry?

The ride was a lot longer than I thought it would be and I almost began to agree with him about the pizza box but then we finally got to the ferry and I felt a bit better. Of course, we still had to get the girls, our stuff, and the pizza box off the bus, make sure we found the right ferry, get tickets, and make it to the boat on time. It all worked out just fine and we managed not to kill each other and the kids were so happy to have pizza for lunch. The spouse even ate some, albeit grudgingly.

While we waited to get on the ferry, the girls ran around, chasing birds and checking out boats. The ferry ride was fun - the four year old watched the boats out the window and the baby and I wandered around the ferry checking out people and especially dogs. We got to the Vineyard and managed to get the kids and all of our stuff off of the boat.

Now we just had to find the hotel, which was supposed to be really close to the harbor but then I realized that I left the directions in the car back at the Sunshine Lot. Luckily the spouse has an iPhone so he could look up the exact address. We found the street and began to head down it towards the water, with the baby in the stroller and carrying the rest of our stuff. The streets were packed with cars moving closely past us and the sidewalks were narrow and full of holes. It turned out that we were going in the wrong direction and would have to turn around. By now, the kids were getting tired and hungry and it was really hot. It seemed as if no matter which direction we turned, the sun was shining directly in our faces, blinding us. By the time we finally made it to the hotel, we were all miserable but somehow I managed to maintain some small vestige of humor. As we entered the deliciously air-conditioned lobby of the hotel, I turned to my husband and said, "At least we aren't still carrying that pizza box!"

Can I Get a Witness?

One day my daughter will be really angry about this post...

I don't know what it is about the bathroom in my house that inspires the kids to want to be in it all the time. It's probably the smallest bathroom I've ever been in; we can't close the door while standing by the tub - we have to get out of the way first. I've already written about never getting to be alone in the bathroom when I need to use it. Unfortunately, the public display does not stop there.

I don't know why this is but whenever my daughter needs to poop, she wants one of us to sit or stand outside the bathroom door to watch her. She will call to one of us - usually me - to please stop whatever it is that I'm doing to come watch. You can hear her call out through the house, "I need to poop!" in her sweet little singsong. Then we are expected to witness the whole ordeal, which for some reason seems to take an inordinate amount of time. The most common time for this event is when I have just laid dinner on the table, I'm ravenous, and I'm just about to take a bite of something while it's still at the intended temperature. Then, I hear the poop call and am required to stand by as things come out.

If I should happen to leave my post at the bathroom door to do something - perhaps stop the baby from choking on a piece of my dinner that she's stolen from my plate while I'm on poop duty - the kid will call out from the bathroom, "Mama, you're missing the whole poop time!" And I suppose I'm meant to be disappointed and also to hurry right back. Another thing, while she is working on her output, she will take a length of toilet paper and lay it in her lap, begin to poke holes in it with her fingers and then she'll tell me, "I'm knitting this toilet paper." I don't knit. I have no idea where this ritual came from.

It's all cute in it's own bizarre way or I suppose that I have to think it is since this is how my kid is and I'm programmed to find her wackiness adorable and amusing.

Kids' Eye View

I do try to see the world through the eyes of my children - if only to stop getting annoyed when they do things that slow me down. I forget that they are sometimes seeing things for the first time.

Over the fourth of July weekend, we went to the local fireworks display and met up with some friends and their 3 year old and 3 month old. We sat on blankets on the ground in the dark with hundreds of other people. My 4 year old daughter, who was afraid of fireworks last year, had such a great time. She sat in her dad's lap, sometimes covering her ears but watching each explosion intently - with her mouth hanging open. It was fun to watch her. She told me that the fireworks looked like dandelions and I really got what she meant - right when the dandelions go to seed and haven't lost any of their florets they really do resemble fireworks.

Meanwhile, my 16 month old, who is newly walking, didn't pay attention to the fireworks at all. She just wanted to walk around on the blanket and would have preferred to be allowed to walk all around the grounds in the dark where the hundreds of strangers were - every parent's nightmare. But, I managed to corral her and she stayed wide awake through the fireworks.

Our friends' three year old spent the entire show hiding under one or both of his parents. He was terrified of the noise and wouldn't watch the display at all but after the last firework faded and it was clear there would be no more, he jumped up and announced, "That was awesome!" Who knew?

Road Tripping

Today we took the girls on a weekend road trip and with the four of us in the car, I started thinking about the trips my family took when I was a kid. We could never get away with packing seven people in a car like we did back in the carefree seventies.

In the summer of 1976, just before I turned eight, my family took a road trip from our home in Rhode Island, down to Disney World in Florida. It was the bicentennial for the U.S. and down at Disney, they were building Epcot. I barely remember Disney but I have very vivid memories from the road trip. We were all crammed into the family station wagon. Two parents up front, my little brother (who was just three) either sat in the "way back" with me, on the hump between the front seats or in my mother's lap. I usually rode in the "way back" where we had made a nest out of sleeping bags next to our tan, hard-sided, American Tourister luggage (and where my entire box of Crayola crayons melted into the pleather sides of the back of the car). My teenaged older brothers were too big to fit back there and my sister who was 12 probably split her time between the "way back" and the back seat where she would have to sit between my brothers. We sang "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" and did MadLibs. We identified the cabs of various 18 wheelers by their hood ornaments and logos. We played the alphabet game with license plates and road signs. We are not a quiet bunch, it's a wonder my father didn't drive off the road into a tree.

We spent three days on the road, driving to Florida. My older brothers were 16 and almost 15 and one of their hobbies was collecting beer cans. My dad always says he drank a lot of gross beer on that trip so that my brothers could get rare beer cans from southern states. Besides drinking the beer, there was another way to find cans from regional brews. Every time the sun would glint off of something on the side of the highway, my brothers would call for my dad to pull the car over. They filled the car with used beer cans during this trip (although I have no memory of where they put them). In retrospect, it's really amazing how many people must have been just driving around, drinking beer and pitching the cans out of the windows. America the Beautiful, my ass!

I remember at one point during the trip, my dad, who was a two-pack-a-day smoker (Tareytons - do they even exist anymore?), coughed up this big phlegm ball and just hocked it out the open window. Well, since it was a hot summer day and we didn't have air conditioning in the old station wagon, the back windows were open too. I will never forget my oldest brother crying out in disgust when that glutinous projectile came right back in the window and hit him in the face.

Ahh, summer road trips. They just make me so nostalgic. That was the summer I learned how babies were made too. More on that another time...

A Rest Room?

Note: This post contains references to bodily functions. If you are squeamish, don't read it...

The bathroom is supposed to be a place for privacy, right? You get to go in, close the door and be alone with your thoughts and bodily functions. WRONG! Not in my house. With two small daughters, I am almost never alone in the bathroom. I cherish the ugly salmon-colored stalls at work where I can actually do my business alone. I make frequent trips to the bathroom when I'm there just so I don't forget what it's like to pee in private.

This morning I was home with the girls - one of them is recovering from a random summer fever and the other has just come down with it. When I went into the bathroom to use the toilet, this was the scene: the baby was sitting on the floor, pulling at the small bits of toilet paper that are always stuck to the empty roll. My pre-schooler is standing next to me as I sit on the toilet, holding onto my left arm, as she often does when she needs comfort or a snuggle. Needless to say this is not the easiest way to get your body to produce its waste. It appeared that this would be an unproductive trip so I stood up to finish my business and discovered that today was the day that my period decided to make its reappearance - after 2 lovely years without it (yes, that's what happens when pregnant and then nursing). What a kick in the pants! Of course the only pad that I can find is leftover from just after the baby was born. It resembles an inflatable mattress. The pre-schooler wants to know, "What's that, mama? What are you doing?"

Even as I write this post, the baby has her head in my lap and the pre-schooler is jumping up and down and singsonging that she needs to poop and can I please come sit outside the bathroom door while she does that? Sigh. There are certainly worse problems in the world than having two lovely little girls who want their mama!

Nursery School

Some of my fondest memories from early childhood come from the nursery school I went to before I started kindergarten. I was the only kid in my family to go to pre-school and I'm convinced that my mother did it because I was driving her nuts.

It all started because I wanted to be just like my big sister. Everyday she got to leave our house and go to school - totally not fair! I wanted to go to school too, even though I was only 3 1/2 or 4 years old. I stood at the door every morning as my sister left; I watched her go and I cried and cried. My mother had another baby at home to take care of and I'm sure that I was really annoying her. So, she sent me off to preschool.

I don't remember how often I went. I just know that I loved it. I wanted to go to school all the time. We did so many fun things there. I loved my teacher. We called her Mrs. Van. She had a very long, Nordic sounding name and I have no idea what it really was.

For years, my mother kept on her dresser a picture that I made for her while I was in nursery school. It was a cheap plastic frame that we had covered in glue and then dipped into little bits of colored gravel - like the kind you would find at the bottom of a fish tank. Inside the frame was a picture of me washing up in a vat of soapy water. I was smiling like crazy.

I remember taking naps there and I have a clear memory of this thought I had that it was really weird to have to lie down on a mat next to other kids to take a nap. I know I said that I wasn't going to sleep and Mrs. Van asked me to take a little rest - I'm sure I fell asleep - they always trick you with the, "just close your eyes and rest" thing.

I also remember that I learned how to put my coat on while I was at nursery school. They used the same technique that I now use to teach my daughter to put on her coat - we call it "the flip." You put the coat, arms spread open, on the floor. Then you stand at the top by the collar and stick your arms in the sleeves. You flip the coat over your head and voilà, your coat is on - or if you are an exuberant child like my daughter, your coat is on the floor, halfway across the room.

Just thinking about my time in nursery school makes me smile. It was a special place. Even if I did have my first experience with getting stitches while there. More on that later...

Creating Memories

What does it mean when your first memory is a lie? Can your life start that way without it completely messing you up?

When I was 18 months old, I broke my arm. Until I was 13 years old, I thought that my arm broke after I had fallen off the couch on our porch. In fact, I remembered it happening - I can still picture the tile floor coming closer to my face as I fell.

Then, on the day my oldest brother got married, I learned the truth. My brother is 8 years older than me so he must have been 9 at the time I broke my arm. He was 22 on the day he got married and I was 13, going on 14. My brother had just graduated from college and was marrying a woman whose family was much stronger in their religious faith than ours. At that point he had not completely given himself over to God, like he has now, but perhaps their influence caused him to feel the need to tell me what really happened 11 years before...

The funny thing is that I don't have a clear memory of the conversation that my brother and I had on his wedding day. I just remember that he finally came clean and told me and my mother - and maybe our other siblings too - that he had been carrying me that day - probably I was squirming - and he dropped me on the floor in the porch. I must have screamed pretty loud because he took off running so fast that he broke the screen door off its hinges. He ran all the way down the street. I don't know what happened next. I have some pictures of me in a cast and somehow they feel like a memory but that's where the story ends.

The Idea Is This...

I've had this idea of writing a book - yes, it sounds cliche - but I have all of these memories, stories from my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. I would hate to forget them and some of them are kind of funny.

I have scraps of paper all around my house with a phrase or a sentence that I keep meaning to put into some format. Maybe this is the best use of a blog. Then when I think of a story, I can just blog it and then at least I've recorded the memory somewhere. I like this idea. I think it could work. And, probably I'll have to write about the cute and funny things that my kids do...

To Blog or Not to Blog

Why the heck am I doing this? Who is going to read it anyway? Do I really want people to read stuff that I write? Am I just trying to empty some excess garbage out of my head to make room for something else, and if so, what might I start to collect?

I probably shouldn't be writing a blog. I could get in trouble if I say the wrong things about people - and I am always the person who gets caught talking trash about someone while they are walking up behind me.

Maybe I should be specific about what I will and won't write about here - I won't, for example, blog about people who annoy me at work - it's much too easy for people to figure out that I am talking about them. But, isn't that sort of the point of the faceless blog? You get to whine about whatever you want and no one knows it's about them - until they connect you with the blog and then the poop hits the oscillator...

I just read former Gawker editor, Emily Gould's New York Times Magazine article, "Exposed" and boy does that scare me. I lead a much more boring life than Emily ever will but to put yourself out there completely on your blog - why not just walk around naked? or wearing a sandwich board that tells people what you think of them and how many lovers you've had (and what you really think of them)?

Thankfully, I am insignificant and no one is going to be all that interested in what I have to say about things. So, I should just consider this a writing exercise to sharpen my wit and lose the cliches and not worry so much about who is(n't) watching. I'm willing to bet that if I actually do keep this up and try to write often, I will come back to this post and be really embarrassed by my own self.