Loose teeth and other mysteries

It's that week again. The secret week of bliss. But don't tell. I'm working...remember? If anyone asks, I'm working, and it's hard work.

But truly, the work leading up to the opening day of the workshop is hard, and the first day is, if not hard, then stressful. I have to give a speech to a roomful of strangers and field myriad requests and complaints from the participants and faculty. I'm very good at faking poise and aplomb. Underneath, I'm all sweaty palms and knocking knees.

Last night, my nervousness about opening day bubbled up in a seemingly unrelated anxiety dream. This dream revolved around a current household drama, the drama called "when will Owen's first loose tooth fall out?"

Ever since I told Owen that the tooth fairy makes a very big deal over one's first lost tooth, he has been obsessed with its potential date of loss. He begs me for details, "Will it fall out in one day? Two days? Three days and 4 hours?" He has always required precise answers to his questions; unfortunately, I am not well-versed in the typical behavior of loose baby teeth. So I give vague answers, and he is crazy with anticipation.

In short, the loose tooth is a Very Big Deal.

So in my dream, Owen's tooth came out, and he gave it to me for safe keeping until bedtime. And I lost it. On a beach covered in tiny tooth-sized shells. For hours (in dream time) I crawled on my knees in the sand, frantically sifting and sifting and fretting and fretting. But I failed. I woke up before I found it.

It was one of those dreams that exposes very tender vulnerabilities: not only my fear of forgetting some detail for the workshop, or of failing to do my job in some way, but also the deeper, more penetrating and painful fears of a parent, the fear that I'm going to let my child down, scar him in some way, and, ultimately, lose him.

All of this incoherent rambling is an attempt to purge the uneasiness the dream left in me. I can't stop replaying it, feeling that panic and worry. And I realize that my worst fear, in my professional and my personal life, is letting people down, exposing myself as an impostor, as someone who never should have been given the job.

What, are we in Australia?

It reached 80 degrees today. On December 11th. The end days are here.

How is one supposed to enjoy her newly trimmed Christmas tree in BALMY weather? It's a drain on the Christmas spirit, I tell you.

Luckily, this year, Christmas at our house comes with a one year old, so that balances things out in the spirit department. It's impossible not to feel full of love for friends, family, fireplaces, the Three Tenors, and baby Jesus while watching your 13 month old's first Christmas tree lighting. The moment John plugged in the lights for our Christmas tree reveal, Paige stopped in her tracks, her eyes wide, her mouth open. Then she slowly lifted her hand to point at the tree in a gesture that said, "Holy. Crap. Do you guys SEE this?" She stood pointing for a good minute and a half, yawping in glee every few seconds. Then she attacked the ornaments.

Throughout the day today she's been happily carrying around all the holiday tchotches that I've placed around the house. They're all baby safe, but her swiping is putting a damper on my attempts to fancy up the house. Her favorites are the red pillar candles that I put out on the hearth, the kind that come in graduating sizes and fill a room with eau de noel. She enjoys the challenge of carrying things with a bit of heft, living dangerously and all that.

Tonight is just a quickie entry and then it's back to the grindstone, which for now is a folder fat with research papers. When the tide of papers ebbs, I'll be back to warm your hearts with tales of holiday joy and Christmas pickles (when I'm not chained to the sewing machine, trying to stay true to that mother#$%#$% handmade pledge)

p.s. The picture I used with this post captures perfectly Paige's expression when she saw our tree all lit up for the first time. No, no, not the baby...the giraffe.

Back to School

As I mentioned in the last post, the fall semester starts this week. Going back to work always leaves me with mixed emotions. I love the freedom of the summer: long, lazy mornings, days of doing nothing in particular, mosquitoes feasting on my ankles. But by August, I'm ready to have my grown-up time back. At work, I can be me for awhile, instead of mommy.

I especially love office hours (even more so when none of those pesky student people show up). Sitting at my desk in the quiet, with the freedom to type an email without anyone begging for a snack or drooling on the keyboard, is bliss. The minutes fly by, and it's time for class before I know it. I go reluctantly, even though teaching is, after all, the point. And as soon as I get going, I love that, too, in spite of...well...all those things that teachers complain about. Especially when they teach mostly freshman.

All this is to say, my gears are in the process of changing right now. This time of year is always a bit overwhelming, always busy, always stressful. My creative energy will be on the wane. Forgive me a few future lame (or nonexistent) posts. In the words of California's beloved governor, "I'll be back."

Confession

My husband still has not read my blog. Because of the way the universe works, I'm sure tonight, after posting this confession, he will say, "Hey, I want to read what you've been doing. Can I see your blog?" Well then, John, I tell this to you, too, without shame, for what I am going to confess, I earned.

I haven't been doing jack shit this week.

I am the director of a week-long women's writing workshop at the college where I teach. All year long I plan for this thing, doing publicity, updating and printing out mailing lists, courting faculty, balancing budgets. But the week itself? Cake. All I have to do it show up in the morning, set up the book sales table, and maybe make a few photocopies. Then from about 9:30-noon, I do NUTTIN. I have lunch, then from 1:00 - 3:00? Nuttin.

I find a spot in a suite of conference rooms; I plug in my computer; I minimize a page that looks kinda workish in case anyone pops in with a question, and then I goof off on the internet. For 3 hours. 3 HOURS. Do you know how rare a privilege that is? No one at the workshop asks me for a snack. No one begs to play outside. No one whines about bunchy socks, or writhes in boredom at my feet, or attacks a sibling from behind with a plastic golf club. No one drools on my pants or attempts to dive into my shirt through the top of the v-neck.

And there are pastries. Every morning. A whole tray of pastries beside big thermoses of coffee, and the thermoses are refilled all day long. The workshop participants go into their sessions and leave me alone with this bounty. No one is around to see that I have eaten 2 danishes. Then 3. Then maybe, at 11 o'clock, just cause there is no other snack available, one more danish and another cup of coffee with a little splash of decaf in it cause I'm just healthy that way.

After a year of planning this thing, of putting up with all the minutiae of organizing a conference, this week is my reward. I EARNED this. Am I ashamed? I am not. Have I been forthcoming about my week with my family? I have not. I have protected this idleness from any requests that may rain down upon me if family members realize that I have spent more than 20 minutes occupied with something other than family business.

Today is Friday, the last day of the workshop. In some ways I am happy that this is my last day of work for the rest of the summer. I have all of July and half of August free, with mountains of time to goof off with the kids. I do love days like that, days when we loaf in our pajamas until 10 and then slowly make our way to the library or the store or the park.

But this time next week, when I am sitting with Paige in the pee-warmed baby pool, watching the boys splash around in the big pool and out-yell any other children within a 5 mile radius, when they pad over to beg for .75 cents to buy a miniature bag of Sun Chips, I am going to close my eyes and visualize this conference room with its shiny table, its fake crystal chandelier, and its carefully arranged pitchers of ice water, and I am going sigh for the loss of this idleness, these hours of reading Perez Hilton and playing Scrabble Cubes. And then I am going to take a deep breath, look at my adorably soggy children and say, "NO! We JUST. HAD. LUNCH."