Barely promoted

My heart is not a black lump of coal

These past few days I've been reading the little storm that David Brooks'(!) class-and-parenting piece stirred up over at 11D, and at Crooked Timber, and so on. While I pumped, or wolfed down lunch (so I could go nurse my poor (self-)starving baby), or felt guilty that I was using precious paid day care time to do something other than work, per se.

It was awfully stressful to read. Especially as the debate veered from class issues (which I'd love to talk about, and I think I need to go read the book that started it all off) to day care issues. Not great for letdown.

Aside from long-term developmental issues, I worry—as do you, I'm sure—about the odd emotional situations lurking in this new set of relationships. For instance: one of the work-study students at Miss T.'s daycare has picked out T. as a "favorite." Which is good because she can convince her to drink an entire bottle at once, but is bad because the student doesn't really smile very much and she kind of weirds me out, you know?

But something I particularly worried about, before T. was born, heck, even before I was pregnant, was how I'd feel if she hit developmental milestones and I wasn't there. Which, given the fraction of her awake hours I miss, is not unlikely.

Well, it's happened. T.'s finally over her awful cough, which was not great for gross motor skills—for a few days she even forgot how to roll over, which is so two months ago. The obvious next step before she got sick had been sitting unassisted, but that got knocked entirely off the to-do list.

When I arrived at the center for today's lunch hour boobfest, T. was sitting. On the floor with the head teacher. Sitting happily next to a toy arch that had been set up with danglies at just the right height to keep her attention someplace that required real balance to maintain. Sitting unassisted.

I beamed and fell to the floor in front of them and cried, "Look at you, baby! LOOK AT YOU!" And felt clean, honest, joy.

Whatever happened to Emma Jane?

(A quick reassurance: you should think more along the lines of "Whatever happened to Saturday night?" than "Whatever happened to Baby Jane?)

I went to Weatherwood two weeks later. (Dear God, was that January? Yes it was.) Nanna was grumpy as hell and driving both Ricky and Marina stark raving mad: they were spending so much time up at the nursing home that they couldn't eat or sleep. Especially since the bus over there only runs once an hour. Baby performed beautifully, smiled and wiggled for great-grandma, and by the end of the weekend Nanna was eating a bit more, figuring out her wheelchair, and resolving to actually participate in her physical therapy sessions.

She was released home about 10 days later. Marina took out the rug she'd tripped on, and a physical therapist is coming twice a week. She's walking with a walker; next goal is a cane. I've spoken with her, um, twice, maybe? Maybe three times? I suck, and will call tonight.

Classes started. Can I tell you something? Working full-time, and exclusively breastfeeding a baby who still doesn't like bottles much, is really fucking hard. I have some terrific students now, and I'm so tickled that I can still get up in front of the room and talk and then they think and talk back—but all this eating/pumping/running around/not sleeping is wearing me down. If I were to do it over, I'd take the year off.

Oh, and then Dr. Wow got sick of my little Bartleby act and threatened to kick me off the book project if I didn't get some work done. And Miss T. caught an awful awful cold, and cut her first tooth, and I had midterms to administer, all at the same time.

But that week's over now. I'm here with two stacks of exams to grade and a wheezing sleeping baby strapped to my chest, and it'll all be okay.

(Well, as long as I can get, say, three consecutive hours of sleep tonight, then it'll be okay.)