Seven Seeds

This is what is growing on Pie’s back:

*Please Note: these are not my child’s buttocks 

One achieves this state via physical contact.  Who or what has Pie been rubbing up against?  Who or what has been rubbing up against Pie in that Lord of the Flies environment that is rural daycare?  Pie’s circle (singular, thank The Powers That Be) is dead center in his back, dead center in every direction, in that sweet curve down below the wings.  How did this happen? 

Wikipedia says to wash all clothing, especially sheets.  Just what we needed to do this week in addition to moving.  Wikipedia also says to carefully check all other areas of the body on every body in the household, as this yuck is highly contagious and so likely to spread.  

I itch all over.  One of the saddest things about single motherhood is that there is nobody to scratch the center of my back where it gets itchy under my bra closure.  That, and when I run out of toilet paper on the potty there is nobody to whom I may yell for another roll. 

I ruminate, already, on how to keep this undercover (Except from you, Dear Reader): my son will not be the wormy kid at his new childcare next week in Promised Land (Except he will be, secretly, the wormy kid for at least four to six weeks with effective treatment*).  At this moment, six weeks seems like an eternity.  We will call his MD first thing in the morning to beg for the most potent killer cream.

Another time, if you are very lucky, I might share my good old college stories about the scabies that could only be escaped by graduating.  If maudlin, maybe I will write about the fungus that grew on my chest the last year of my drinking (and several months into sobriety).  Poor, poor Pie (and his mother, too). 

Wimper.  Sigh.

All Right.  Socks pulled up.  This is nothing compared to other buildings leapt in a single hop skip.  Nobody can de-scabify a house like I can.  We can do it.  Yes We Can. 

*Damn Wikipedia.  My reaction on first sight was to wonder, I wonder if this will go away all by itself?

Due to a security issue, in the next day or two this site will disappear.  If you would like directions to my new blogging home, leave a comment with contact information.

Today I rented a month-to-month studio apartment, located 1.5 miles from my new place of employment, 6 miles from Pie’s new childcare provider, a mile beyond that to my parents’ home.  $735 per month, including all utilities, wireless, cable, but not phone, in a reasonably safe neighborhood, with backyard for Pie. 

Hard to tell much in depth about gentleman renting this very large studio made out of his old garage, except that he seems nice and no glaring, blinking, neon warning signs went off during our one-hour chat.  There is a statue of the Buddha in his front yard.  He was wearing an Abide hooded sweatshirt (reference: The Big Lebowski).  He says he works tech support.  He didn’t ask for references or even an ID, but I looked nice and reasonable, too, with Pie in tow. 

It has been wonderful to stay at my parents home while they are in London and a gift of a weekend, where everything seemed to fall into place organizing our new lives in Promised Land.  Except for anxiety about keeping Pie from beating on the glass tables in the living room, or throwing or spilling food, or the sure knowledge that, no matter how I try to put everything back exactly how it was, there will be something left out of place and it will irritate and disappoint my father, whether he mentions it or not. 

Thus my decision that it is worth $735 per month and an extra 14 miles drive per day for us to have our own space.  That, and the last two weekends spent in my parents’ home (while they were present) when I lay awake at night cataloguing the various sites in the house where there is alcohol.  I’m not even going to get (deeply) into the assorted glass frogs here and there crying out to Pie for freedom (Throw me through the window, Pie!).  Not good.

If I were my own patient, I would suggest that the central fault line in my psyche is that I refuse to accept people, situations, and other realities exactly as they are.  Despite mountains of evidence.   For example, because I wish that my relationship with my older sister were different, because I wish that my sister were different, because I wish that my parents and I could live a happy functional life together in their home for a few months while I look for a house and start a new job and Pie begins his new full-time routine at the very wonderful childcare center, because I wish these things I ignore that there has never been any indication that these things are remotely possible.  I might call it optimism, except that it is optimism so fervent, to such a degree that hope outweighs rationality to the point of pathology.  Pathological optimism?  Perhaps I am being kind to myself calling this strange thing optimism and using a word like hope.   

I had a younger sister who died of ovarian cancer when she was 20 years old because she was so mentally ill that she could not adhere to basic medical recommendations but not so mentally ill that anyone could force her to do anything, including treat the cancer or the mental illness or, ideally, both.  She didn’t think she had a problem. 

In retrospect, I could go back in time and identify her going off in our childhood.  I could be that nine-year-old girl sitting in front of the Christmas tree with her six-year-old sister and listening to things that were not real coming out of her mouth, and knowing they weren’t real and not knowing that, deep down, Susan believed every word she was saying.  I could be that teenager about to escape to a college that was not by accident located on the exact opposite end of one of our country’s coastlines, watching my sister fly off the edge.  I was horrified, and I so hoped I wouldn’t have to watch her land.   

I was 23, and it was twelve days short of Susan’s twenty-first birthday when she died.  I had come home after college to drink, renting a shared apartment with another crazy woman in the same city in which my parents had rented my younger sister, at her request, the apartment in which everyone but her knew she would die.  The heavy lifting fell to my mother, who was with her that night.  I had helped the best I could, drinking as much as I could in between chauffeuring Susan to the hospital or a doctor’s office or a trailer belonging to some bizarre friend and, later, staying with her at that apartment with the tubing and the cigarette smoke and the tumors swelling Susan’s abdomen as if she had eaten a watermelon whole.  Jerry Springer was always on TV.  I went home when my father arrived to help my mother with the late shift.   

I don’t know why I think of Susan when I think of pathological optimism.  Except that I do know why: I always thought she could do better, or I could do better, or something would happen to save her, or to save me.  That is what I wanted to have happen, anyway, and I can’t begin to describe the depth of this wish.  So, it is not really optimism at all that I am trying to describe.  It is unmet need and raw desire and grief.  This is along the lines of what I refuse to accept, when it occurs to me—as it still does, regularly—that perhaps it will be different this time, with my sister or my parents or WhatHaveYou.  The refusal is an act of denial.   

So now I am 33 years old, my son is two, and what is wrong with me, what unmet needs reside just below the surface of my skin that I want to go home and be nurtured and loved and rest and have it all be okay?  Good thing I am not my patient.

My parents are good people.  In many ways they have been tremendously supportive.  I don’t think it is a stretch to write that they have been supportive in all the ways that they know how to be supportive.  They are flawed.  Just like I am. 

So. I rented this studio and I think we will be happy there.  I think it is worth $735 per month to grow (up) a little.

Something my father wrote to me in a recent email that I want to remember: 

Dear [Mother of Pie]

I know that you know that you do not have to ask if [Pie] lives with
 us while you find a place in [Promised Land].  Never the less, thanks for
 asking and you may come with him.*  If you are alive when I wake up in
 the morning , it adds greatly to the quality of my life.

Just saw another stupendous play.  If the National did the seven
 dwarfs, it would make me cry.  Mankind is capable of such great things and it
 gives me hope.

Dad

[His full name], PhD
Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition
University of [Think medical school in the Northeast]
Xxxxxxxxx, XX,#####
Phone:Fax: *Please note: I did not ask.  Maybe my mother did. 

Pie is snug asleep.  I have treated myself to shrimp and avocado.  For later, scallops wrapped in bacon are warming in the oven.  I am about to camp on my loveseat to watch the primary returns.  I am so excited.  This is wonderful.  For me, tonight.  For Pie, in his lifetime, the possibilities that may break open this year.  Little chycks are cracking eggs, my friends, cracking them wide open.  

Pie has a new home. 

At least, that’s what I imagine his paternal grandmother will say—to someone else, not to me we can all be thankful—when she learns of our upcoming move and the provisions I have made.  ‘Home,’ that is how Pie’s paternal grandmother referred to daycare once in my presence.  “That many hours a day outside the home at such a young age,” she uttered with quiet scorn, “well, that’s the child’s real home then.  He may *sleep* at his parents’ house, but really he *lives* at daycare.” 

Yes, Pie has a new home. 

And it is wonderful.  I feel like I won the lottery. 

Back-story: Promised Land is reputed to have many very high-quality childcare options.  Said options, I was told by people who should know, are notoriously hard to secure, with waiting lists that never end if one can even get one’s offspring in line.  Last Thursday morning I called every five star childcare center in Promised Land and tried to work some magic.  I garnered two interviews.  Last Thursday night my new boss called to move my start date off to March 10^th (She called, in fact, right around the time I would have been boarding the plane to AmFamLand had I not canceled my trip in order to give my current employer the required thirty-days-notice and accommodate a start date of February 29, but I’m not bitter).  This meant that Friday I was able to take some PTO, collect Pie just before his nap so he would sleep all the way to Promised Land, change both of us into nice pants and cute shoes, put my hair up, don some lipstick, and present myself at the only two highest-quality centers in Chapel Hill that might have a potential slot for Pie.   

The second one I visited cost $1295 per month,* with twelve children ages two to five dressed in blue and white uniforms running around a quaint cottage, with a goat and a bunny in the wooded backyard, yummy looking Spanish food simmering on the stove.  At least I imagined the children running around the cottage.  It was totally empty and unlocked when I arrived for my 5 PM appointment.   This was advertised as a bi-lingual daycare, but during my stay the only English spoken was the director addressing the few parents who did not happen to speak Spanish.  The two childcare assistants did not appear to speak English, which is not a problem except that Pie does not speak Spanish, and has a speech delay.   

Because the director was also twenty five minutes late to our appointment (They were all on a walk.  Walks are good.), I had plenty of time to hit up the other parents, as they accumulated to await the return of their respective children, for the inside scoop.  Here is what I heard when I asked the first mom who showed up and wondered aloud where her child, and everyone else, might be, ‘What do you like least about your childcare situation?’ 

“It is wonderful for the same reasons it is not.  It feels like a family.  It is not run like a business.  It is all her show, a one-woman show.  If she has a bad day, everybody has a bad day.  But she doesn’t have that many bad days, I guess.  She forgot to give me the vacation schedule.  I showed up and the door was locked.  I tried to call, but she was on vacation.  It is better now that I have the vacation schedule.  The spots are so tight in Promised Land.  Everybody has a waiting list.  We were really lucky to find this place.” 

The first center I visited cost $995 per month, plus $25 for the weekly class in tumbling (and really, how could I deprive Pie of tumbling?).  The doors were locked and, once opened by the secretarial sentry, revealed a long hall with four classrooms on each side.  Each classroom had glass windows from the hallway, as well as a nice view of the three surrounding playgrounds (so the children have something a little different each day) in a wooded setting, and the organic herb and vegetable garden (”When we find a lettuce leaf nibbled through, that is a teachable moment.  We compare it to the bites the children make, and we say, ‘Look at your bite, look at that bite, what could have made that bite?’”) from the outside windows. 

Oh, and twelve to fourteen children of the same age and two teachers, with all the accoutrement I look for: kid-sized wooden furniture, little kitchens, books, art supplies, dress up paraphernalia, all set up in seven tidy little areas.   The children in the young two-year-old classroom looked happy and secure, all blond and scrubbed except for the five Asian boys, who were not blond but were also scrubbed.  I did spot a significant number of other kids in the center who were not blond but scrubbed, but for some reason in this classroom only white folks and Asians (My suspicion: because the other two-year-old class had an African American teacher, perhaps because of parent request that classroom had a racial imbalance that reflected that constituency.  Were I parenting a child who is Black, that is where she would be). 

In the classroom I observed, one of the teachers is also the center’s Spanish teacher, so once a week she goes round to the other classrooms, but because this classroom has her full-time they sing Spanish and English songs each day, learning the respective versions.   All of the teacher’s throughout the center have four-year degrees.  The parents are required to send one piece of fresh fruit each day (”Because when the dental school came to teach the children about brushing their teeth, we learned how important water and fruit are–we also do not do much juice at this center, at their suggestion”).  They celebrate all kinds of holidays, “Including Hanukkah and Solstice and Chinese New Year, that’s next week.”

Guess where Pie will reside?

A miracle of the sevenseeds variety has occurred: I liked the childcare that cost ~$300 less, per month, and they offered us a slot to begin March 10.  I want to levitate around the building, in a good way.

*$1000 is average per month for any type of childcare in Promised Land. 

So, halfway between Hell and Promised Land last Friday afternoon, on the bisecting interstate, I get the nod-partial wave-smile from the guy in the white workman’s cap and overalls riding sidecar in a big white work van emblazoned with Mr. Stoner’s Electrical Services.  Ladies, we know the partial wave.  It is not a subtle gesture.  I think it is supposed to be ambiguous.  I think the guy giving the wave can tell himself or his buddy that he didn’t really mean to hit up the chyck in the little energy efficient car (with the two-year-old in the backseat, thank you very much), if said chyck is unresponsive or looks at you as though she is thinking, Did you not notice the two-year-old, Guy?!, among other potential responses. 

No, he wasn’t waving at Pie.  I know what it was, because the van drove alongside me for quite some time while the buddy driving grinned and glanced over far too often for safety’s sake.  Now, that’s how you make a good impression on the mother of a small child, folks.  I am qualified by profession and personal history to state that the two guys in the van looked like they were doing Mr. Stoner proud. 

As I watched the Mr. Stoners drive off ahead of me, no doubt in search of more positive and responsive prospects, I wondered to myself, Who allows themselves to be picked up off an interstate by the Mr. Stoner guys at 3 PM on a Friday?  Huh?  And then it hit me: I do.  At least, I would have.  That would have been me, about five years ago.  No kidding.  I’m so glad I’m different now than I was then.  I’m so grateful my life has changed.  I’m so in awe of the world turning while I just drive down the road, happy kid asleep in backseat and all.

My potential new boss called at seven this evening to offer me the position.  Pie was banging pots and pans in his kitchen.  She asked if now was a good time.  Sure!  The salary is ~$700 per year less than my current rate, annualized.  I asked for the difference and she is going to get back to me tomorrow. 

She also offered me a start date of February 29, March 3, or March 7.  Starting February 29^th means I work at my current position right up to the 28^th, then drive to Promised Land (2 hours) and get up the next morning to start at my new position.  This is to accommodate the 30-day notice required at my current position.  It also means canceling trip to AmFamLand this Thursday evening, a very sad thing because I love visiting AmFamLand, and this trip was a very special trip: Pie and I were going to master the art of Time Out.  Canceling AmFamLand, however, means that I can maintain positive rehire status at my current company, and that my health insurance at new job kicks in March 1^st (Coverage begins the first day of the first month after one start’s, so starting on February 29^th gets us in under the wire).  The former is important for future job searchs (“Is she elgible for rehire?”), and the latter is important because I save $850/per month in COBRA premiums, and Pie’s head does not become a pre-existing condition.  So, notice to be given tomorrow with no sick days and no vacation.  Sad but true.   

Four weekends to move. 

I am a little anxious.  It is hard to move.  I need to not be crazy when I start my new job.  I need some new work clothing, and some self-love.  Let the world be as kind and gentle as possible to my son and I for the next two months, oh please. 

Here is a list of what I think I need to do (Preliminary, feel free to offer suggestions): 

Tomorrow

1.  Give written notice at my job.  Be nice.  “It is a great opportunity and a better fit.”

2. Call CDSA coordinator (Pie’s speech and play therapy service providers), tell her to arrange transfer of care, set up services in Promised Land, find out about wait list for CDSA childcare subsidy I read about on the internet.

3. Email childcare referral agency, get list of all 5-star and NAEYC-accredited programs that have space for Pie–start calling.

4. Call new boss to accept position and finanalize start date.

5. Check Craig’s List for a month-to-month or 3 month lease on small, cheap apartment close to work/start looking for a place to live.   

Note on #5: Part of me feels like it will be stressful to move to an apartment, and then move again.  Part of me feels like it would be wasteful to rent when I could just live at my parent’s new house.  Part of me feels like I should just spend a weekend seeing the other 12 houses on my Possibilities list and then make a low ball offer on the house I like on XXXX Lane, three blocks from new job.  A larger part of me, at this moment, thinks it would be stupid and stressful to rush into buying a house, like maybe more stress than I need with a new job, daycare, etc., and what if my offer doesn’t get accepted and I have nowhere to live?  I also think it would be very stressful for all of us for me to live with my parents for six weeks or six months.  It means alot to me that they are willing, but when I think of the day to day and the glass frogs (very expensive) and the glass surfaces and the dishes in the bottom cupboard—to say theor house is not set up for Pie is an understatement, and why should it be?  My dad gets grouchy sometimes.  There is no place for Pie to be free except the garage.  And Pie will be a basket-case due to the move, and me, I will be actively fighting with every fiber of my being not to turn into a basket-case.  So there we are.    

6. Call new boss to tell her start date

After Tomorrow

5. Give notice at current daycare.  They will be heartbroken.  Ask for reference.

6. Send Thank Yous for Pie’s birthday (don’t forget paternal great grandmother and grandmother) and Thank Yous to my references.

7.  Notify pediatric head specialist and company of change of address

8. Make list of everyone else to notify (licensing board, current company HR, Pie’s dad via certified mail, and?)

9. Open bank account in Promised Land

10. Don’t forget about dream of being a high school English teacher-eventually take class to find out more, send off transcripts to lateral entry folks.

11. Schedule shutting off of utilities.

12. Buy gift certificates with my LL Bean coupons about to expire.

13.  Don’t forget cousin A’s birthday in March and Sibyl’s in August.

14. Get boxes to pack.  Pack long-term (don’t need for 3 months) and short-term (things I need).  Label clearly.

15.  I need some new clothes for work.  This is not optional.  I have to look nice to do a good job.  Maybe Dad can watch Pie and I can visit Nordstrom?

16. Contact Mortgage person to get this in process

17. Contact Realtor to tell her I want to start seeing possibilities when????  After the Move!

18. Reserve a U-Haul now for the last weekend in February.  Should it be from Promised Land to Hell, or Hell to Promised Land?  Can it be oneway???  Do I need to hire moving people (Daddy is 74 and Pie is two, neither should be loading my furniture.)? 

What am I leaving out? 

I think I should really take time to be happy and excited.  Instead, I am worried about how difficult this will be for Pie, what it will be like to go back to work full-time (I’m at 32 hours/week now), whether my boss will turn out to be crazy, whether the job will be too difficult and I won’t be capable and will fail, etc.   

Need to take deep breathes, tell myself good stories. 

Post Script

I just spoke with good woman Spiritual Mentor, who tells me the following: My list represents fear.  Everything is okay.  Everything is working out.  Everything will be fine. All of the evidence for at least a few years now bears that out.  Live in the truth of that.  Take a long bath.  Quiet the Storm.

(Right after I right my resignation letter)

On his birthday three days ago, Pie’s father called to explain that he hadn’t sent child support this month (It is in the mail) or anything for Pie’s birthday (It was my fault, apparently),* and to wish Pie a happy birthday.  Today in the mail, we have several birthday cards for Pie from assorted family members on his father’s side.    The cards from the uncles (all boys in Pie’s dad’s family) were all addressed to Master Pie (his father’s last name) .  Oh, what a sore spot for me.

Before Pie was born, I was very clear that I wanted Pie to have my last name (I was consistent and unwavering.  I can trace my strong feelings about this decades back).  I can say I was on drugs, in trauma, under inordinate amounts of stress and pressure and that is all true.  The weeks before and after Pie’s birth were pretty traumatic.  But it is also true that I’m the one who screwed up.  I’m the one who didn’t stick to my plan.  I had the final say; nobody had veto power, since we have not been married.  Pie’s last name hyphenated (my last name)-(his father’s last name).

Why did I make this mistake?  I buckled.

My older sister yelled at me for my entire pregnancy about how wrong I was to not give my son his father’s name (in addition to having a child out of wedlock, in addition to having a child at all).   Shortly after Pie was born, she called the hospital to yell, “He sat next to you and held your hand when those doctors told you things about your child that would have made most men run down the road, and you aren’t going to let him have his child with his last name?!”

My father had taken me aside the previous Thanksgiving to speak softly about MPI.  MPI is Male Parental Investment.  He earnestly explained, “Honey, our side of the family is invested.  We are invested no matter what.  Their side, not so much.  You need all the help you can get.  Why don’t you name him (His paternal grandfather’s first and last name)?  Names don’t really matter anyway.” 

I remained steadfast.

When the lady came to ask me or information to fill out the birth certificate, I was holding my beautiful pointy-headed child and Pie’s father excused himself to go smoke a cigarette.  He came back five minutes later and informed me that he had just spoken with his employer’s human resources department, and he looked me in the eye and told me they told him they wouldn’t immediately provide insurance coverage for Pie if Pie did not have Pie’s dad’s last name.  The entire morning of Pie’s birth pediatric specialists had been in and out to examine Pie, get permission to run tests on Pie, explain to me the various procedures and surgeries he would likely need throughout his life, inform me that they had been able to schedule his first MRI for 11 PM that evening, ask did I want to attend?  Please.  Pie needed health insurance, in addition to my policy, as much as he could get.  Let it be said that Pie’s mother is practical.  She is a pragmatic woman.

It was a lie.  And I should have known.  And the statement about the health insurance was followed closely by tears and vaguely threatening statements about how Pie’s dad would never be happy unless Pie had his last name, his family would make fun of him, he didn’t know what he would do or how he could live with it.

 I did not have it in me in those moments to honestly sum up this situation with horror and disgust at the sorry excuse of a father I had chosen for my son.   Instead, I tried to make Pie’s father happy, an impossible task, destined to fail, and destined to lead me to today, looking at this three-day-late card addressed to Master Pie (his father’s last name) with my name not in sight.  I know it was done to test me, to piss me off.  I didn’t put it back in the return mail after noting that there is nobody at this address with that name.    

I have regretted the decision I made, and my son’s name (all but the Pie part) since before the ink was dry on the documents we took from the hospital.  I have asked Pie’s father to let me change it, and he won’t.  I regret it every month when I spend a few hours on the phone with various insurance or medical provider representatives who haven’t been able to bill properly because they can’t get my son’s last name right.  I regret it when I sign my kid in at daycare and the sign in sheet has my name but the cubby in his classroom has his father’s name because the women running the center can’t be bothered to hyphenate and clearly have their own competing opinions.  I regretted it at the Christmas Pageant when, under Angels, Pie’s name was mangled almost beyond recognition (Pie’s real first name was misspelled, followed by his father’s last name, followed by a space, then a backslash, then my last name, misspelled).   I regret it when I think about what to do about Pie’s last name in the future.

Do I just assign him my last name and hope he sticks with it and doesn’t resent me and I don’t resent the hell out of him when he chooses his father’s last name because it will fit on the soccer jersey?  Do I tell a kid he gets to/has to choose?   (Well shit.  Lucky Pie.  How young?)  Do I set him up to explain his parental situation the first day in the classroom every year, right from the start? Do I tell him his dad pressured and lied to me when I was vulnerable and so, sorry, kid, your name was a mistake?  Do I lie to him and tell him that I was trying to take his feelings into consideration because I thought maybe he might like to have that connection with his dad someday?  Do I (and this is my latest, most secret and devious thought on the matter, probably will not come to fruition)  tell Pie that when he was a small child he asked me if he could use only my last name, and so that’s how I enrolled him in pre-school and instructed his teachers?

I can’t believe I have written two pages on this.  I can’t believe I spend so much time spinning my wheels in misery about this. 

(I can hear Spiritual Mentor: “Believe it, honey.  It’s real.  Nobody is surprised but you.  And why are you surprised?  The first time, maybe, but not the hundredth.”  She used to say that about other things involving Pie’s dad, as well.  I think my favorite line was something like, “Nobody is surprised by any of this.  Well, okay, we were all a little surprised by the personals advertisement when Pie was six weeks old, but not by any of the rest of it! “)

And now we are going onto the third page.  Forgive me.  I don’t know how to stop.  I hate this.

One last thing, before I stop.  This birthday card.  I am not inspired to drag myself and my son across the country to visit with an uncle who I imagine interrogating Pie at the earliest opportunity about what Pie thinks his name might, perchance, be.   

*In November, at Pie’s father’s request, I provided a list of items Pie might like or need for holiday and birthday gift ideas.  Shoes were on that list.  Pie’s dad told me he didn’t send anything for Pie’s birthday because, “You said he needed shoes, but then you went out and bought him new ones and so I didn’t know what to do.”  I did.  I bought him new shoes when he outgrew his old shoes.  Guilty.