Strawberry Milk and Bounced Checks

Since Kate seems to have lost the ability to type, and posting a sign video would use too much bandwidth, and only a few folks could understand it anyway, it looks like I'm going to be doing all the posting for the foreseeable future. And my glacial posting rate assures that we've lost the few readers we ever had, so I suppose I'm writing now pretty much for myself, Kate, and maybe Eva if she ever chooses to read this.

Oh, well.

I've honestly felt like there's little to post this winter, as the family struggles through a period of scarce money and half employment. Kate's borne up valiantly with her job, when she's told me many times that she'd rather be home with Eva. And I'd love to give her that freedom--I hope to still, in years to come. Despite the steady erosion of America's middle class, I hope to earn enough that Kate can be a full-time mother. I grew up with one of those, and despite the times she kind of aggravated me by asking tons of questions when I didn't feel like talking (which was actually kind of rare, that I wouldn't feel like talking), it was pretty good having a mother around all the time.

On the other hand, I did grow up pretty sheltered and dependent, so there are consequences to everything. But hey, as a race we have to roll with the psychology we're born with, so I won't be listing complaints.

And that gets to the seed of why I haven't posted much lately. This is a theme I've mentioned a few times already, but I feel the need to discuss it again now, if only due to the persistence of my shame and frustration with the trouble we've been having lately. I've backed myself into an industry segment--offshore geology and geophysics--which is strongly seasonal. On top of that, I've had some significant debts--mostly the condominium, but also some credit cards--to dig out from beneath. Kate of course had nothing to do with creating these problems, but she's had to suffer through the period of solving them. And no small part of that has been my anger and self-isolation resulting from ongoing lack of money, and knowing that my choices have led directly to this.

There aren't many nights when I don't dig through old memories, mostly from college, and accuse myself of the laziness and indifference which led to me as a 40-year-old struggling to establish a career in marine science. When I went to Dartmouth I had no intention of becoming a professor, and I gravitated toward Greek and Latin only because I had an excellent Latin teacher in high school (thank you again, Mrs. Moser!). But at Dartmouth I never took the prospect of academic achievement seriously, for many tangled reasons, and not until my late 20's did that attitude change. Since then I've struggled to narrow down and specify what I want to do, and how.

Meanwhile investment bankers ruined the world economy and I'm left holding a very empty bag of vague aspirations, and hoping that I haven't doomed myself and my family. I don't always feel so bleakly, but it's an impossible thought to escape completely. Buddha I'm not.

My days don't really have a routine, except what centers around Eva: breakfast between 8 and 9 (depending on when she wakes up), shower while she watches a Signing Time video, lunch around noon, 30-40 minutes of her running around outside, followed by her afternoon nap, when I'm free to do what I like around the house. Generally this is my time to work on math, since I have a bunch of loose sheets of paper and a couple of pencils lying around, normally things (especially the pencils) I don't want her getting her hands on.

I'm proceeding right now in the hope that I will get into UNH, working on a few types of math which I'll need as an ocean mapper. And even if I don't get in, I'll be disappointed but I'll carry on learning this and apply it in my private career. I'm not about to give up, despite my rage and embarassment throughout this winter. Kate has suffered through this extended mental darkness of mine, and we've had some bright moments but she's usually found slight comfort in me.

Eva remains a smiling, dancing, and increasingly talkative baby. In my dour moods, while I'm reading at the computer, she'll trundle up with her blankie (the red one is becoming her favorite, and I'm not surprised) and ask to sit on my lap. Once there she'll lean on my ribcage and suck away on her blanket. I don't like her to retreat into her blanket for very long stretches outside of her naps, so I'll generally do something with her after a few minutes. But she breaks through even my desk meditations.

I still drop the occasional inappropriate word in her presence, and she's given to repeating the last word she heard, so I've been momentarily humiliated on a number of occasions by my own foul mouth.

Eva loves to go outside, and she's learning to love splashing through mud and puddles of water. Last fall she learned to love grabbing dirt from the half-barrel in the driveway and flinging it over her shoulder. The dirt in the barrel is still mostly frozen (not for long, though!), so she can't do that yet. But she does love to pick things up and hand them to me--leaves, tufts of grass, pebbles--though fortunately no deer scat (and there are piles of it all over the yard).

I've resumed singing drills in the morning, after my shower, and Eva has resumed her somewhat uncertain relationship with my singing, alternately intrigued, or milling around somewhat indifferently, or standing in the doorway with her blankie and managing the occasional sob as she looks at me. She's probably angling for attention, but I do sit down with her on my lap afterwards and show her the keyboard. (That baby will know the notes A-G, as well as what an octave, a third and a fifth are before she's three. Maybe before she's two...then we'll work on chords.)

So Eva's delightful, hardly my only joy, but certainly one of the major joys in my life. My little bengal, though she's often feeling as much or more stress than I am, is another. And carrying on with intellectual work even while unemployed is another.

But some things Eva isn't quite so wonderful at--drinking milk is one. It's nearly impossible to get her to drink any. It's gotten to the point that she expects it at dinner, and if we use a sippy cup she doesn't normally use (like one you can't see through), she'll inspect it carefully and try to see any drops of milk on it. Then she'll try the drink, and if it's milk, her face will wrinkle slightly and she won't touch it again.

We tried chocolate, but Kate's mom says that the chocolate binds up the calcium in the milk, effectively canceling out its main benefit. But I haven't seen anything like that written about strawberry flavor, so I've given it a try on little Rocky these past few nights, with marginal success at best. Kate and I give Eva two spoonfuls of calcium supplement every night, but Eva's still too young to understand language to the point of bargaining--such as, "Drink your milk or you won't leave the table." I see plenty of standoffs like that in years to come. And though Eva's revealed herself to have a temper like mine, those aren't standoffs I intend to lose. As Bill Cosby once said, "You don't mess with Dad. That's the old gunfighter, jack."

As for the other part of this title--bounced checks--well, yeah, we bounce a few every month. Neither of us has mastered, or even tried to learn, the lost art of balancing a checkbook. And I suppose our week-to-week budgeting skills are pretty meager too. But some embarrassments and bank fees aside, we've survived so far, and I think we'll continue to do just that.