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It is true that I like to plan and organize things, particularly if they are related to something I’m excited about. I will never become a corporate event planner or a travel agent, but I like planning things that matter to me. Right now, for example, I am in the midst of planning an event at my church for families with LGBTQIA+ kids. I love to plan trips for my family, complete with detailed itineraries that everyone makes fun of and we always stray from but at least we have a starting point and options. I love options. Which is why I have thoroughly enjoyed envisioning and implementing my 16-year-old’s college search process. Why am I doing this instead of her, you might ask? I’ll tell you.
- I understand what college is and how it works much better than she does, since I went through the search process and attended college and graduated, and I know many other people who have done the same. At first I thought she magically knew all the things I knew about college, but it turns out that’s not the case.
- One thing I’ve learned about parenting her over the past 16 years is that I have a pretty good sense of what she wants and what she needs even if she doesn’t realize what she wants and what she needs at the moment. I am proud of my track record of things I’ve mildly coerced her into doing (which she resisted simply because they were unfamiliar) that she ended up really loving. So I have come to understand that she often hesitates about jumping into something she hasn’t seen for herself. I think she connects with experiential learning. It turns out that our college visits have helped her learn about her interests, or at least reveal to us interests we didn’t realize she had.
- I like to plan ahead. See above comment about often-mocked but still appreciated vacation itineraries. I’ve wondered for a while why so many families and schools wait until it’s almost time to apply to colleges to start looking at colleges. By the time you’re a senior, or even well into junior year, your GPA is pretty firmly established. You may not have the opportunity to sign up for any more classes. When you’re touring colleges, they say they want to see that you’ve challenged yourself in high school. By late junior year or early senior year, you’ve already taken or at least signed up for all your high school classes. You’ve already been doing most of the activities you’re going to do. It’s certainly possible you will take up a new sport or learn to play a new instrument as a junior or senior, but probably not likely. So that’s why I started this process when my daughter was in 10th grade, so there was still time for her to absorb the information we learned from college visits and act on it. I also anticipated that she would be unavailable for the entire summer between 11th and 12th grades because she aspires to work as a camp counselor at the sleepaway camp she attended for eight summers. That would mean no college visits during that time, which is often when families have the opportunity to tour.
Many people have asked how I started the search, since the universe of universities can seem so overwhelming, given that there are approximately 4,000 of them in the US. So the first thing is to narrow the scope. This does not mean that the initial list you make will be the final list, or that your kid won’t change their minds about what they want many times. And that is totally fine. But you have to start somewhere. Here’s the path we’ve taken so far. (Disclaimer: I am not saying this is the path for your kid, and I am not inviting debate or discussion here. Just explaining our experience).
- During her freshman year, I was concerned about the lack of self-confidence she expressed when talking about people she knew who were being accepted into colleges that she felt sure she could not get into. Similarly, she seemed daunted by the prospect of taking AP classes because she had heard how hard they were. Of course this prompted me to launch into one of many “you can do hard things” speeches that parents pull out of their back pockets when needed. I attempted to explain to her that she did not have to go to any particular kind of college, or a famous or prestigious college, and that she could take a gap year if she didn’t want to go to college right after school. She could work or volunteer or take time to think if she wasn’t ready for college. We’ve emphasized this a lot. But that she does eventually have to go to college and she does have to take hard classes because she is capable and it’s important to challenge yourself. At this point it was still all theoretical.
- While we were on vacation, we toured a well-known college in that city. Not because of any particular program that school offered, but simply because it was there. As in, “hey, here’s a college! Let’s look at it just for fun!” I hadn’t really prepared her for this tour and she mentally freaked out, as demonstrated by total silence, walking 20 feet ahead or behind us at all times, refusal to discuss anything during or after the tour, and unwillingness to read the brochure. So that didn’t go super well.
- Later, when everyone was in a better mood. Perhaps this was days or weeks later, I don’t really remember, she asked me a lot of questions about how college works which I didn’t realize she didn’t know. After that, she seemed to feel reassured that she could, in fact, handle the concept of college, and was more open to thinking and talking about it.
- One of her teachers suggested to me that my daughter might be interested in one of the Seven Sisters women’s colleges. My first reaction was, “Whoa aren’t those super expensive? We are not rich!” But her teacher assured me that these schools give generous scholarships, which turns out to be true, and was one of the first lessons I learned during the search process, which is that the sticker price of a private university is basically meaningless. I am still trying to understand exactly why that is the case, but I know that it is. There is a lot of money out there, whether or not you qualify for need-based financial aid. For example, at one school we visited, they give you an automatic $25,000 scholarship if you were a member of the National Honor Society. I felt so vindicated when we learned this in an info session because I made Zoe apply to her school’s NHS even though she didn’t understand why it mattered. Another school that we’re planning to visit this fall just sent us an email saying “every admitted student receives at least $24,000 in renewable scholarship upon admission.” Like I said, the way this works does not make sense to me, but there it is. What I have told my daughter is that she can apply anywhere she wants, and we’ll see where she gets in and what aid they offer her. Anyway the point here is that we took a day trip to the nearest Seven Sisters school, which was beautiful, and my daughter was receptive to learning about the school, appreciated its intimacy and traditions and proximity to a cool city, and she was able to start seeing herself as a college student.
- At this point I was able to start asking questions, since she had some context for coming up with answers. We discussed geography, and she said she wanted to stay on the East Coast, basically within a day’s drive. A smaller school where she can get to know professors appeals to her, so we’ve concentrated on schools with populations roughly 5,000 or fewer. However, a few larger schools with smaller programs in her area of focus have recently made their way on to the list, but she definitely wants to be part of a tight community. We’ll get to that later. She also mentioned that she did not want to go to a school with a Greek system or a big focus on sports. It turns out, we’ve since learned, that this means Division III athletics. I think almost every college we’ve visited is Division III, which means they definitely have sports but sports are not the most important thing at the school. At one college we we toured, when they took us to the gym, I asked if many students attend games. The tour guide said that their women’s volleyball team had recently won the division championship, and that volleyball games in that gym were usually standing room only, better attended than basketball or football, which my daughter and I both thought was awesome. She knew that she wants to study abroad so it was important to find a school that offers plenty of opportunities for that. And I knew, even if she didn’t yet realize it, that we needed to look at schools that offer generous financial aid.
- Armed with this information, I started looking at lists. My first stop was Colleges that Change Lives. I don’t remember where I first heard of this book, which is now also a website and a whole organization, but it seemed like a good place to start. First of all, college should be a transformative experience, and second, I liked the idea that someone had already vetted these schools and decided they were special in some way. I read about many of the 44 colleges, focusing on those within roughly 600 miles north and south of us. I requested information from any of them that seemed even remotely like a good fit. At this point, my daughter didn’t really have any idea what she wanted to study. The only class she was especially interested in was psychology, so we used that as a placeholder. Most colleges have psychology programs, so we weren’t ruling anything out based on academic offerings yet.
- I created a spreadsheet with a row for each prospective colleges, and columns to fill in info like location, size, admission rate, average GPA of admitted students, percentage of students of color (we wanted a school that is diverse, like our high school and community), percentage of students who study abroad, etc. I’ve modified the spreadsheet many times and it has given birth to baby spreadsheets with subsets of information.
- Understanding that Colleges that Change Lives is just a small slice of the big pie of possibly great colleges, I opened up the Fiske Guide. This is one of the few nods to my own college search process, which was much narrower and seemingly haphazard. I love a nice big reference book, and Fiske is just that. I had bought a copy earlier when I was introducing the idea of the Seven Sisters schools, so my daughter could get a little insight into them. Each entry is only a couple pages long, and they include ratings on social life and environment and cost and things like that. She underlined and highlighted elements of the entries that interested her. This was kind of a baby step in terms of her engagement in the process, but it was an important one. One of the most useful parts of the Fiske, in my opinion, is where they say something like “people who applied to this school also applied to these other five schools.” If you liked this book, be sure to check out these other books with a similar vibe. So I looked up every school on our list in Fiske, and added relevant details to the spreadsheet. Then I looked up every school listed in the “if you liked this school” part of the entry, and read about them to see if they met our other criteria. If they did –or came close–I added them to the spreadsheet and requested information on their websites.
- A friend whose daughter had just gone through the college search process mentioned Niche.com. This is a handy website where you can look up a college and find a lot of information at a glance, including their “grades” for each school based on value, academics, campus, etc. These may be useful but should not be taken as gospel. Different things matter more or less to different people. Overall it’s a great resource, but I have two favorite features on Niche.com. 1) a more robust version of the “if you liked this college…” component of the Fiske, which suggests schools that similar to the one you’re looking at based on several different metrics, like “here’s another school with 2,000 students or fewer,” or “here’s another school with a top nursing program,” or “here’s another school in Pennsylvania.” So you can certainly go down many rabbit holes, but eventually you feel like you’ve thoroughly examined each category. 2) You can compare schools side by side, just like you would when you’re buying a refrigerator from Home Depot or a coffeemaker on Amazon. Comparing schools has been useful when looking at net costs, acceptance rates, and other numbers. I will reiterate that these are all numbers and not the only factors in decision making. Niche.com can’t tell you if the vibe at a school feels right to your kid. But it may be able to tell you if your kid is likely to get in or not, so you can make sure they’re applying to some schools they definitely will get into, as well as maybe some schools they’d like to attend but might be a reach. So I added several schools to the spreadsheet that Niche.com suggested.
- We started to schedule visits. I’ve heard from many experienced parents that it’s just as important to tour schools you don’t like so your student continues to sharpen their sense of what appeals to them, what matters to them, and what they might want to avoid. So, while I didn’t want to waste our time going places I thought my daughter would hate, I definitely included some maybes on the schedule. Here’s what I’ve learned since we started doing tours. 1) Don’t schedule more than one school in a day, even if they’re in the same town or city. It’s too much, mentally and physically, to absorb and process. 2) Do schedule an info session and a tour. You will get different information and perspectives from each. Info sessions are typically (but not always) led by admission staff, while tours are led by students. 3) Ask questions during both the info session and the tour, but also remember you can read the brochure and look things up online, so you don’t have to ask everything. 4) Bring a water bottle and wear comfortable shoes. Maybe a raincoat and umbrella. Some people I know like to eat on campus when they visit. I do not, because 1) I feel like it’s weird to eat there when you’re not a student and you have other options, like a real restaurant. 2)You can find out how the food is from other sources, and 3) a given meal might not be an accurate representation of the food overall.
- Somewhere in the middle of all this, my daughter discovered what she wants to study and do for a living, which is something in the realm of filmmaking, video production, photography, broadcast journalism, or media arts. Every school seems to call it something different, and she is still exploring what areas of the field she wants to dig into–which is great–she has so much time ahead of her to figure it out. But once she had this epiphany, that definitely changed the shape of our search. We started looking more intentionally for schools with film/video/media arts programs. This is slightly tricky because, as I mentioned, different schools label these things differently. She doesn’t want to study film, or theory, or just communications. She wants to make things. So that has added and eliminated schools to and from our list. It is important to note, however, that we have not struck a college from the list simply because it doesn’t have a media program if it is in a consortium with other schools that do offer great options in this field. It’s quite possible that she could attend a small women’s college that has amazing leadership opportunities and a progressive vibe and close-knit community while also taking film and photography courses at one of its partner institutions. We have learned that most schools, at least in big cities, are part of these consortia and you can easily cross-register for classes and basically have the resources of several schools available to you.
- And that brings us up to speed. So far we’ve visited 8 of the 14 colleges currently on our list. We have tours scheduled for three more this fall, and are planning to take on two more next spring break. We have one late-breaking entry that we haven’t schedule yet, but it’s relatively close by, so we can squeeze it in. And there are few more schools that are basically like notes in the margin of the spreadsheet right now. Maybe someone suggested we check them out, or we heard them mentioned somewhere, so I will do a little research to see if they merit a trip. I’m sure that some of the schools will be crossed off the list after we visit, and some may rise to the top. We still have 14 months until any applications are due. I imagine by then my daughter will have forgotten her impressions from some of our trips. Between now and then she will probably meet with some admissions officers when they visit her school, or at college fairs. Her school counselor encouraged her to contact the admissions office or professors in the departments she’s interested in to ask questions, as colleges look favorable upon applicants who have demonstrated a deeper than average curiosity and interest in the school. The list of schools where she actually applies will probably look pretty different from our current list. We have time to sort it all out. Once she knows where she’s been accepted, she can always visit again for admitted students day or an overnight.
- Of course I’ve already been thinking about next spreadsheet. This one I’m going to have her create, but I’ll help. This one will include the name of the admissions officer and the application requirements and deadlines, and the requirements and deadlines for the scholarships each school offers. And of course there will be another spreadsheet for other scholarships. Thank goodness for the internet. When I was in high school I had to look these things up at the library. I think I only knew about a fraction of the opportunities that were out there. Fortunately, I found one school I wanted to attend, and I applied early and got in and I loved my time there and it all worked out. But I was a different kind of student with a different personality than my daughter, and the world is different than in was in the 90s, so I want to open up the world for her as much as it’s in my power to do.
In the meantime, I will keep loving our road trips. Our next one is to upstate New York, to a city neither of us has ever seen. Every time we travel–for college visits or otherwise–we get excited about finding local coffee shops with resident cats, browsing through independent bookstores, and eating at funky little restaurants. We usually end up walking for miles. We listen to our favorite music and stock up on snacks for the car and notice weird and wonderful things outside as we drive. We laugh a lot. I’m soaking up every minute with her before she leaves on this grand adventure that I’m helping her imagine into being.
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Even before the pandemic we were online shoppers–it’s usually easier to find exactly what you want when you want it and we have better things to do than go into stores where there are other people. Oh wait, that second one was true before but is truer still today. And you can order something online in mere seconds. I recognize the danger in this. The allure of convenience is strong. Impulse buying is no longer just about candy bars. Is it instant or delayed gratification, when you know you have found what you were seeking, but you must wait for it to arrive? Does it matter? No, it does not matter. This is simply the state we’re living in, and we have (mostly) come to terms with it.
Here are some of the items we have bought online in the past couple months. You can guess who these were for.
- Green Gobbler drain cleaner (worked great on our bathroom sinks!)
- Snacks for high school teachers (the PTA is putting together goody bags–will these delicious snacks address the extreme mental and physical stress that educators are facing? Only time will tell)
- A new recording of Mozart’s Requiem
- A sample vial of the perfume that Hailee Steinfeld wears
- Brightly colored extra large women’s underwear (they’re not granny panties if they’re not plain white, right?)
- KN95 masks for kids and adults (hopefully the legit kind and not the counterfeit kind)
- Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza card game (theoretically this was for Niki but I really love it. The whole family plays)
- Iron supplements (who needs anemia? We don’t!)
- Beethoven piano sonatas
- Stainless steel cups and insulated tumblers with lids and straws because all four of us seem to break a lot of glasses and spill a lot of drinks. What is wrong with us?
- Three angled plastic measuring cups (1 cup, 2 cups, and holy cow 4 cups! because see above we broke all our glass measuring cups)
- Mozart symphonies 39, 40, and 41
- A set of new Pyrex dishes with lids primarily because I was trying to make cornbread recently and realized our 8×8 pyrex was missing and remembered that we had broken it (seriously, why can’t we hold onto a piece of glassware?) and it turns out if you’re ordering a new 8×8 Pyrex it’s only slightly more expensive to order a set of 20. And this way we can phase out the plastic containers that you can never find the lids to and that crack and get stained and sometimes warp. The lids to the glass containers always stick around. They seem to be more loyal.
- Subscriptions to Jenny Lawson’s Nowhere Bookshop Fantastic Strangelings and Happy Endings book clubs where you receive a new book each month (Fantastic Strangelings=a variety of weird stuff, Happy Endings=romance) because you know, I definitely don’t own enough books. But I do read them. And I love them. And they sustain me during dark times, which are currently all the times.
- Tarot cards–I have a deck that a friend gave me when I said I wanted to learn to read them, but I realized that I don’t love the images on the deck and that has kept me from studying, so I started reading some books–still using that deck as a reference–but I found a couple decks online that look absolutely amazing and feel right to me. And Zoe ordered a deck because she wants to learn as well. I gave my first ever reading to her the other night (only using six cards from the Major Arcana, and completely relying on my notes) but she said it was amazingly accurate and made her think about her question in a new way. I’m excited for the new decks to arrive.
- Venetian music from 700-1797 which comes with a very pretty book of paintings of Venice
- Of course groceries.
- And dinners.
- And COVID tests.
So what does this say about our family? We are hungry and thirsty and clumsy. We love music and books and games. We are trying not to succumb to Omicron, but who knows if we will succeed. In the meantime, we will shop.
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When I came back to the Crescent Inn
to pick up our order–chicken parm dinner, spaghetti and sausage, flounder and shrimp, and chicken tenders–the red-haired woman behind the counter was packing it up
She wore a leopard-print mask that fell slightly below her nose
On her left arm were tattoos of origami cranes
On her right arm a purple dahlia
She was telling me that she was just waiting on one more salad and the chicken parm when another customer walked in
A short, round woman with a brown ponytail, wearing a pink shirt
She was wearing a disposable mask
but asked the red-haired server–I’ll call her Dahlia–
if she could have a mask from the box on top of the counter
Dahlia said, “they’re a dollar,” and the customer–I’ll call her Karen–seemed
disgusted, as if Dahlia had said, “they’re pre-infected with COVID.”
Karen announced, “I’m here to pick up an order!”
and Dahlia said, “Yes, ma’am, I’m just packing up this lady’s order and I’ll be right with you.”
“I ordered an hour ago!” Karen proclaimed, although she had just walked into the restaurant.
“I’ll get your food as soon as I can,” Dahlia said, while checking and double checking that all of the items in my order were present, including the little containers of ranch dressing for the side salads, and the garlic bread that was actually just buttered toast, maybe with a hint of garlic powder, wrapped in brown wax paper. “I’m just one woman.”
Evidently this comment provoked Karen. Perhaps she thought Dahlia should be several women.
“Why you gotta treat me like shit?” Karen asked. I stood up straighter and shifted away from Karen as subtly as I could manage.
“I’m sorry?” asked Dahlia. “What did I do to upset you?”
“You’ve been treating me like shit from the moment I walked in here,” Karen explained, as if using logic. “Will you hurry up and get my f***ing order? I’ve never been in here before but I’m being treated like shit. Is Mike here? Mike knows my sister.”
“He is here,” Dahlia said. “Would you like to speak to him?”
“No, but he knows my sister!” Karen reiterated.
Dahlia looked at me and I looked at her, eyes wide. “You wanted ranch with that salad?” she asked, even though she knew. “Yes, please,” I answered, with all the politeness of a person who had definitely not been treated like shit and had not witnessed anyone else being treated like shit, other than the way Karen was treating Dahlia.
Dahlia used the opportunity to go into the kitchen to get the ranch dressing, murmuring an explanation of what was unfolding out front. I expected a manager or someone authoritative to come out to appease Karen. Instead, a man with a gray mustache came out, surreptitiously looked around, and dumped a bucket of clean silverware onto a dishtowel on the counter. He returned to the kitchen.
While Dahlia was in the kitchen, Karen muttered to herself about how she had been treated. I continued to inch away.
Finally Dahlia finished packing up my order and handed it to me. “Here you go, honey, you have a wonderful evening. Enjoy your dinner!” she said in a tone that said, “look how I am pleasant and definitely do not treat customers like shit!”
“Thank you so much,” I said, “You have a good night” in a tone that I hope conveyed, “I’m so sorry that this lady is being so inexplicably rude to you and I would have definitely said something to her if I had not been afraid she had a gun, which is not an unreasonable fear given the culture of impulsive gun violence in our country, including a recent episode in which a security guard at a dollar store was shot to death by a customer who did not like being asked to wear a mask.” Hopefully she understood.
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We had the whole 660 acres of Camp Friendship almost to ourselves for three days. This would’ve been Zoe’s sixth summer at Camp Friendship, and it would’ve been our second summer of family camp there. Of course camp was canceled because of Covid-19, but we still had the opportunity to spend a few beautiful, sweaty, blissfully screen-free days in the hills of Central Virginia.
A family-owned summer staple since 1966, Camp Friendship counts on hundreds of campers each week of summer to stay in business. Without these campers, does camp even exist? Well, yes, if you bring your camping spirit. This summer Camp Friendship is renting out its cabins and inviting guests to enjoy the amenities of camp as long as they bring their own gear. The exceptions: you do not need to bring your own horse or kayak. Trail rides on some of the camp’s 68 gorgeous horses are available (for an additional fee), as are lessons from the camp’s resident tennis pro. The four of us went for a fun hour-long trail ride, led by Susanne (who runs the equestrian center there) and Caroline, who has worked with horses her entire life. Our patient horses were Frank (for Randy), Haley (for me), Secret (for Zoe), and Wilma (who was the perfect size for Zeke). Randy and Zeke took a tennis lesson (also an additional fee) with Alina, who runs the tennis program. I realized that the equestrian and tennis programs do provide an important stream of income for the camp year-round, as locals come to ride and play whether or not camp is in session.
Many of our hours at camp were spent in the lake, either swimming or kayaking. They open the lake for boating in the morning and swimming in the afternoon. You can also fish there as well. We actually borrowed fishing gear for the trip but the kids never got around to using it. I was reminded that I actually like kayaking, and that Zeke can actually do it on his own–although he did get kind of stuck in some bushes at the edge of the lake at one point, but Randy extracted him. Camp Director Ashleigh (originally from South Africa) and another camp staffer Amy (originally from England) were on lifeguard duty the whole time we were there, so we enjoyed chatting with them a lot. They (along with literally everyone at Camp Friendship) are super friendly and welcoming. Kayaks, canoes, paddles, life jackets, and inner tubes are all provided at the lake. They are sanitized between uses.
We brought a soccer ball and frisbee with us as well, but it was a wee bit hot and humid and we didn’t end up using them. (Note, the cabins are not air-conditioned. Bring fans. The showers, however, are glorious. I took several cold ones to refresh myself.) In between our activities we played a lot of cards (Speed is the official card game of Camp Friendship and Zoe loves to beat us at it) and board games (Randy and Zeke played infinite hands of Marvel Fluxx, and we all played Kings in the Corner and Apples to Apples), read our books, and napped. The only activity we hoped to do that we couldn’t was a hayride because it was thunder storming both evenings at sunset, when the hayrides are scheduled. We even bought a bag of apples and a bag of carrots to feed the horses who you encounter on the hayride, but we ended up leaving them at the equestrian center as a parting gift. After the rain cleared, we did get to make our s’mores over the fire pit outside our cabin. We were having some trouble getting the fire going, so we walked down to where the only other family in the village was staying (definitely socially distant, several hundred yards away) and asked for their advice, since we could see their roaring fire from our cabin. They clued us in to the technique of squirting hand sanitizer on paper towels and using that as accelerant. It worked! Yet another use of hand sanitizer!
Because of Covid, the camp is not providing food for cabin rentals, but they offered several suggestions of local restaurants and stores, some of which deliver to camp. As much as I didn’t want to go off camp property (it’s so liberating to walk around with no keys or wallet or phone!) I enjoyed exploring a little of the area around camp. In the town of Palmyra we picked up dinner from Wahoo BBQ, which was delicious. We also spotted a rainbow on our way and admired stunning groves of enormous trees along the road. In the other direction, in Troy, we got dinner from Crescent Inn, which served up fantastic fried flounder for me, with a side of sweet and crumbly cornbread. And in case you forget anything important, or need extra snacks (we brought MANY snacks), there is a grocery store and a CVS in Palmyra and a Walmart Super Center in Gordonsville, which is a mile or two up from Troy. So you have options. The camp store is also open a couple hours each day so you can stock up on ice for your cooler or buy some local products or pick up some Camp Friendship t-shirts as souvenirs. You can also bring your own food to cook over the fire, but that is an advanced level that I have not yet achieved. There are plenty of picnic tables around all the villages. Zoe wanted us to stay in junior girls (also known as Cedar Grove) because that’s where she has stayed as a camper for five years, and also because there is a covered pavilion, where we ate our meals and played games. Oh, there’s also a ping pong table there! And we played ping pong!
Camp staff told us they will be continuing to do cabin rentals through December this year, and that they still have plenty of room! While we were there, only two or three other groups overlapped with us, and we had plenty of room to spread out.
I am not a camping sort of person, although I kind of wish I were and I have a lot of friends who are, but I do like being outside and away from regularly scheduled life (and the internet*). I love this option of being able to get away without having to set up and stay in a tent. The cabins are simple but comfortable. Camp Friendship is just a couple hours from DC, and about 30 minutes from Charlottesville so you can stop and pick up some bagels from Bodo’s on your way there or home.
So if you’re looking to get out of the house where you’ve spent more time in the past six months than is ideal, I recommend a few days at Camp Friendship. They will be delighted to see you.
*Note that there is wifi in a couple locations at Camp Friendship, if you really need it. I did stop outside the hotspots a couple times to get directions to the restaurants where we got takeout.
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Here are things I need to be reminded of:
I cannot save or fix everyone and everything. Or anyone and anything. In recent days and weeks I find myself increasing feeling frantic, as if I have to act urgently to keep people I love safe and healthy, and I have to buy things and order food to keep businesses and restaurants I like from going under. I have to find things to do to help. I have to find ways to keep my kids busy and engaged and not on a screen all summer. What I actually need to do is take one million deep breaths. It is not all up to me. In fact, very little is up to me.
Why is this so hard to remember?
I’m sure I’m not the only person whose feelings of anxiety and despair manifest in weird ways. I know I’m not the only parent desperate to figure out a plan for their kids for the summer. When you’re isolated with your family it’s easy to forget that you aren’t the only one spinning in this vortex of stress. I text and talk and zoom with friends and family, but most of the time I’m just in my head. Also, my head hurts. Often.
A friend pointed out to me recently (in a conversation via Facebook Messenger) that one thing we’ve lost to the coronavirus quasi-quarantine is informal connection. I don’t get to see and chat with the other parents and kids and the awesome staff at EvolveAll while my kids are doing martial arts. I don’t get to engage in unplanned conversations before or after church or get hugs from friends there or run into people in the parking lot and say hello or smile. I don’t see parents and teachers at school drop-off or pick-up or chat with parents when delivering my kids to playdates. None of these interactions is replicated with a zoom call. A lot of life’s most interesting moments happen by accident. Not that life isn’t still interesting, but it’s much narrower now.
I’ve been spending way too much money lately online, but all in the service of education, family togetherness, and food. I must be Outschool’s new favorite customer, as I’ve signed my kids up for a zillion classes. I decided I need to cut myself off from any new registrations for a while. Today I ordered supplies from Michael’s for several of these classes. Perhaps if we’re lucky we will have a house full of embroidered, knitted, and hand-sewn creations by the end of the summer. Not to mention stunning photographs and other works of visual art.
I was super proud of myself because I ordered a four-bike bike rack (on sale) from REI and consulted with a mechanic about the hitch required to install on our van to attach the bike rack to. The mechanic recommended a hitch but suggested I consult with the manufacturer of the bike rack to make sure it was compatible, which I did, and it was, so I ordered it. The mechanic is going to install the hitch when it arrives and then we can take our bikes…somewhere…to ride them down a country lane while we breathe in virus-free fresh air far away from other humans.
In an attempt to simultaneously encourage Zeke’s love of reading and support my local independent bookstores and used book sites, I invested a significant amount of time soliciting recommendations for new books for him to read, and then ordering a bunch of them from different places. Man, do I miss the library. I really really really miss the library. I am excited for the arrival of all these books, none of which Zeke knows about yet. It’s always fun to talk about books with teacher friends and parent friends and booksellers. And books are always worth spending money on. In my opinion.
But now I need to rein it in. I don’t need to spend any more money for a long while. Except, of course, on food, since everyone in my house seems to want to eat constantly. And somehow I still forget to feed them sometimes. We have everything we could need right now to educate and entertain us. We have each other. We could honestly use a little more space. The 12×12 tent I bought and put up (with the kids’ help) in our backyard is nice, but not without its challenges. Since our townhouse is part of a condo complex, the condo association hires a landscaping crew to take care of maintenance. This is great except that we don’t know when they’re coming or what they’re going to do. So this morning I was sitting in our family room trying to work when I heard the mower approaching out back. I ran outside and unstaked the tent and more or less held it up and scrunched onto the patio while the guy went back and forth with the mower. Meanwhile, he moved the hammock out of the way because I couldn’t move the hammock while holding up the tent. I really can’t do everything. I know that. I’ve just got to learn to stop trying so hard.
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Yesterday it was my birthday
Paul Simon
I hung one more year on the line
I should be depressed
My life’s a mess
But I’m having a good time
This year I received birthday greetings from my neurologist, my dentist, my kids’ dentist, the Red Cross, William and Mary, Michaels, Starbucks, DSW, and District Taco. Oh, and a lot of people who I actually know and who love me!
I would not have guessed that a having a birthday while in quarantine could be so lovely, but it was. My people made me feel special.
A popular thing to do on Facebook is throw a fundraiser for a nonprofit you like. In the midst of a global public health crisis, it’s hard to pick one. The day before my birthday I invited people to do something to help their local food bank, or any organization that is helping people through the pandemic. Scrolling through all the people who listed the organizations where they had volunteered, donated food, or contributed money made me so ecstatic. A few people said they were turning over their stimulus checks to community food pantries, and they would think of me when they made the donation.
I had a Zoom birthday party, which was just as weird and silly as I expected. A Zoom party enables you to introduce people you love to each other, which is one of my favorite things in the world. Everyone said how they knew me, and it was cool to see so many people who were in our wedding on the screen together for the first time since our wedding video. For the party, I made a quiz about myself on Kahoot! which apparently was much more challenging than I thought. My sister won, which was not surprising. I think she won Zoe’s quiz too. She’s a clever one.
Then my parents and clever sister surprised me by appearing for a six-feet-apart sidewalk and parking lot party! My sister, wearing a mask, brought me a Wonder Woman balloon and a bouquet of flowers. My parents brought presents and my dad read a poem by Billy Collins, my favorite poet.
My husband brought home lunch from Pupatella, our favorite pizza place in Arlington. My family made me a delicious and messy cake. Our sweet next door neighbor wrote me a lovely card and gave me a journal covered with almond blossoms, which she stealthily left on our doorstep.
After I took a little nap while my family played Goat Simulator on the Xbox, we went for a hike at Scott’s Run, one of the parks we discovered since quarantine started. Like most of these hikes, it runs along the Potomac, and unlike most of the hikes, features a lovely waterfall. We were all wearing masks, but we didn’t see too many people, and those we passed on the trail stayed respectfully several feet away.
I hadn’t realized how much it had rained since the last time we were there, about a month ago. But clearly, it had, since the fallen trees Zeke climbed on were now separated from the shore by rushing water.
We opted not to swim out to recreate the picture. But we did put in 3.2 miles and, according to my Apple Health app, climbed 22 floors, also known as hills.
At home I took my second shower of the day, because you know I love to be clean, and I enjoyed a SamGram–a little FaceTime with my nine-month-old nephew, watching him grab toys and make noise and roll around and wiggle his little legs. The next best thing to snuggling.
Meanwhile Randy and Zoe made me non-dairy fettuccine alfredo at my request. If it were just me, I’d have the regular kind with cream, but since Randy is allergic to dairy and I think Zoe may be lactose intolerant, I wanted a treat everyone could enjoy. This involved them soaking cashews in water and blending them with some other ingredients. The alfredo sauce was not, perhaps, quite as creamy as what I’ve had before, but it was tasty and the whole thing was delicious because they made it for me.
I would give almost anything for this quarantine to be over–for enough tests to test everyone and a vaccine and leaders who are willing and able to take care of their people. But I wouldn’t have had my birthday any other way. Thanks, guys!
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When they first announced that our schools were closing because of the virus, it was only supposed to be for a month. The kids would return to school on April 14, after spring break. I can’t believe this decision was made only two and a half weeks ago. Already it feels like forever, since everything has changed and changed and changed again since then. But way back then, I naively thought that we might still be able to have spring break. We weren’t planning any exotic trips–just an overnight to Baltimore to visit the American Visionary Art Museum, explore the National Aquarium, and take the water taxi to Fells Point. And another overnight to Pennsylvania to spend a day at Hershey Park, which Zoe requested as a birthday present and where she and Randy were going to ride all the roller coasters. Still, we had something to look forward to.
Now our schools are closed for the rest of the school year, although perplexingly that’s not the case nationwide. And Virginians, along with residents of many states, have been ordered by the governor to stay at home unless we need to leave home on essential trips. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Arlington has surpassed 100 and continues to climb. It seems like we are stuck at home for the foreseeable future. I just hope to God we can have our summer. Please don’t tell me otherwise right now. I cannot handle it.
I am feeling discouraged. My family will not be able to be together to celebrate my or my kids’ or my parents’ birthdays, or Easter, or Passover. We won’t be able to see friends or go to church.
Everything was glitchy today. Apps froze, devices crashed. Zeke collided with a bookcase and cut his arm. I cannot concentrate on writing anything for work when any children are in the room.
I do not intend to whine. I should just go for a walk. I feel this obligation to make dinner though, since we got takeout last night. I know it could be much worse and we are exceptionally privileged and lucky. But the indefiniteness of it all weighs heavily on me.
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I’ve been taking for granted all the things I love to do that involve being surrounded by strangers. Hearing live music and singing along with people you’ve never met but who find meaning in the same songs that you do. Seeing a movie and laughing or crying along with everyone else who is laughing or crying. Eating delicious food at your favorite restaurant, noticing everyone else satisfying their craving for that same food. Exploring a museum, learning something new, being inspired, wondering how the exhibit is speaking to those around you. Going to the beach and watching people fly kites and build sandcastles and splash and swim and throw frisbees and soak up vitamin D. Being at church and listening to a sermon that might be preached just for you and also for hundreds of other souls searching for ways to make sense of the world, and lighting candles, and praying and meditating together, and holding hands and agreeing to help each other be a force for good in the world.
Even reading, which you might think of as a solitary activity, often involves strangers. I love going to the library–helping my kids pick out books and finding something for myself. And in Arlington I almost always run into someone I know at any library. Browsing in bookstores, which is as much a sensory experience as an intellectual one. I’m one of those people who likes to feel the covers of the books and inhale the scent of paper and ink. At my favorite bookstores there are post-it notes or little notecards taped to the shelves explaining which books are recommended by which of their booksellers and why. I love discovering wonderful things to read thanks to mysterious other readers who are humans rather than algorithms. This month I had planned to go with three good friends to hear Glennon Doyle read from and talk about her new book, Untamed. I would’ve been in the audience at the Lisner Auditorium with thousands of other fans, mostly middle-aged moms like me, feeling intense sisterly solidarity. I was also excited to go with one of my best friends to see one of my all-time favorite authors Ann Patchett speak at a local middle school. Being in a room with strangers and knowing they have all read the same books you’ve read and have been moved by them too is heady.
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time over the past 13 years at playgrounds, which are usually lively and well-populated. Around here, if you spend more than 10 minutes at a playground, you’re likely to hear families speaking in at least a couple languages besides English. It’s always fun for me to guess what language they’re speaking and where they might be from. I haven’t heard any languages besides English (random French, Spanish, or German phrases thrown around by my family notwithstanding) in a couple weeks now. Even when we’ve been out on hiking trails in Northern Virginia, I feel like I hear mostly English. We see a lot of white guys in their teens and 20s, some of them talking on their bluetooth earpieces, looking like they’re training for something big.
Just before coronavirus exploded in the US (fortuitously), I had the opportunity to be part of literacy activities at both my kids’ schools. At Zoe’s middle school, I coordinated Booktopia, where invited all 1,100 students to come to the gym (not all at once) to pick out a book to keep. Any book they wanted (that we had)! This involved a lot of volunteers who helped me sort, organize, and restock the books, then sell the leftovers at the used book sale at the school a few days later. Booktopia involved conversations with students and teachers and touching a lot of books that a lot of people had touched. I didn’t think too much about that at the time. The book fair at Zeke’s school was held the same week. This year the book fair was presented by one of my new favorite Arlington organizations–READ (Read Early and Daily). READ’s mission is “ensuring babies and young children have new, quality, culturally relevant books of their own that are mirrors and windows into their everyday lives and communities.” One of the ways READ funds its book giveaways is by running school book fairs. One of the best things about this set-up is that our school book fair had the most spectacular selection of books with diverse characters by diverse authors that I have ever encountered. And since I had just spent several months ordering books for Booktopia that featured diverse (in every possible way) characters written by diverse authors, I was super impressed. The point here is that book fairs are another occasion where many kids and teachers and parents are swirling around. I love helping kids pick out books. I love reading with kids. Now when I think about that I just think about all the possibility for transmission of germs.
Then there’s substituting as a co-oper at Arlington Unitarian Cooperative Preschool, which I have enjoyed doing on occasion since my kids graduated from there. Turns out it’s much less stressful to co-op when A) you’re not required to do it but you’re getting paid for it and B) your own child is not demanding your attention when you’re supposed to be helping with the whole class. The bad news is that infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are pretty indiscriminate about who or what they touch and when and it doesn’t matter where their hands have been. The good news is that AUCP is really into good handwashing. Every kid and every adult washes their hands before snack and after snack and after the playground and before lunch and after lunch and of course after diaper changes and using the potty. One of the lines I always remember from the many parent orientation sessions we attended there was the preschool’s fabulous director Susan Parker saying, “I suggest you invest in a good hand cream because you will be washing your hands all day long.” All that hand washing practice has paid off! So many adults have had to come up with creative ways to remember how to wash their hands properly, but I guarantee you that the five and under set at AUCP have it down already.
Next Monday would’ve been the first game of the soccer season with my amazing women’s team Ice & Ibuprofen. We have cool new jerseys for the season, with a new logo. I don’t know when we’ll have a chance to wear them. Soccer involves a lot of contact with other people. You could kick a ball back and forth while standing six feet apart, but you couldn’t play a game. I know a lot of my teammates know each other because they live in the same neighborhood and their kids go to school together, but I only see them on the field. We had tickets for our family to see the Washington Spirit play their season opener at Audi Field for my birthday. Randy has season tickets to DC United. There are few things as thrilling as cheering on your favorite players and teams in a stadium filled with tens of thousands of other fans. No matter how big your TV is, it’s not the same watching from your couch.
Even though we’re going a little stir-crazy, my family is fine. We have more than enough stimulating and fun activities to do in the house. And we’ve been hiking. We’ve been FaceTiming and Zooming with friends and family. All that is absolutely saving our sanity and keeping our brains engaged. But there’s something about being out in the world, surrounded by strangers, doing something you love and they love too, that I am missing deeply.
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In a darkened Tennessee motel room, just a mile from the Virginia border, my children are sleeping, each splayed across a double bed. At some point I will have to squeeze in beside one of them so I can sleep. It will most likely be Zeke, because he is smaller and therefore slightly easier to move, and he is less likely to leave bruises on my legs when he kicks me during the night. All those years of martial arts and soccer and running have endowed Zoe with very strong legs. Over the past nine nights of this trip, I have slept in a variety of beds in four different states with each of my children, occasionally my husband, and once–I think–alone. I am very much looking forward to being home in my own bed with space enough to sleep peacefully. Randy sometimes steals the covers but he never thrashes around or elbows me in the face.
On this trip I saw three cousins, two cousins-in-law, four second cousins, an uncle and two aunts. It had been so long since I’d seen some of these family members that they’d never met Zeke, or interacted with Zoe since she was an infant. I also got together with a high school friend, whose kids instantly befriended my kids. As we were leaving her house, Zoe asked, “can we exchange information?” I instructed her before she went to sleepaway camp this year to make sure her friends wrote down their names and contact information if she wanted to keep in touch with them, so she wouldn’t come home with scraps of paper saying “mom’s #” with a phone number and not know whose it was. Zoe drew one of her signature dragons for her 16-year-old cousin Elizabeth, with whom she was greatly enamored, as a thank you for Elizabeth giving her two stuffed animals from her childhood collection. Zeke came away with a large plastic version of a Swiss army knife, which he called his “tool,” and he spent hours asking everyone he could find if they had a problem, which he would then attempt to solve with his tool. He stuck the tool in his pocket and carried it everywhere. He dissolved in sobs when he was FaceTiming Daddy and couldn’t find his tool to show him. Zeke can’t seem to remember the name FaceTime. Earlier today he asked if we could TimeFace Daddy, and then as we pulled up to the hotel he asked if we could HotelFace Daddy. I said yes.
On this trip we hung out with five different dogs–Bella, Maisy, Lily, Dewey, and Lucy–in three different houses. Even though Zoe was reluctant to even walk into the house when Bella was standing at the door, after less than 24 hours with her, Zoe and Randy wanted to adopt her. On the way from South Carolina to Georgia, Randy was looking at dogs on an animal rescue website. Discussion quickly turned to how many pounds was too many and which dogs were better with kids or required a fenced yard. The jumpier, louder dogs at the next two houses perhaps curbed Zoe’s enthusiasm to adopt, yet by the end she was sad to leave the dogs who had seemingly terrified her moments before. Zeke was unfazed by all of it. He just couldn’t remember that some of the dogs were girls, saying, “Hi little fellow!” as he pet them.
On this trip I tried to pack in as much family time and adventuring as possible and therefore did not plan for adequate napping for Zeke, which resulted in several meltdowns and a lot of huffing and puffing. I suppose this is to be expected from a three-year-old, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating. Zoe was a good sport about almost everything and usually continued to do whatever she was supposed to be doing while I dealt with Zeke. Sometimes she helped. It is easy to forget that it is hard for three-year-olds to adapt. All things considered, Zeke probably adapted really well. We did a LOT in 10 days–the Georgia Aquarium, Legoland Discovery Center, the High Museum of Art (exclusively the Eric Carle exhibit, family gallery, the outdoor climbable sculptures, and the ArtLab, 
lest you think I tried to coax my kids through the Walker Evans exhibit or anything too sophisticated), Zoo Atlanta, the Center for Puppetry Arts, the Children’s Museum of Atlanta, and the climbable sculptures at the Abernathy Greenway. We shopped all too briefly at Little Shop of Stories and devoured ice cream at Butter & Cream (I recommend the OG Goodness).
We saw sea lions perform and beluga whales glide gracefully by and we touched sea anemones. We learned that sea lions have ears you can see and seals do not. We pedaled into the air and shot at bad guys on the rides at Legoland, and admired a Lego model of Atlanta’s famous buildings. We read Pancakes, Pancakes and learned about Eric Carle’s technique of sweeping paint onto paper on the floor with a broom and then cutting it up to create his vibrant illustrations and how growing up in Germany and walking through the woods with his father influenced his work. We built block towers and created collages and Zoe and Randy made a stop motion animated film. Zoe and Zeke fed romaine lettuce to a hungry giraffe with a long and powerful tongue. We saw orangutans and pandas and flamingos and giant tortoises so calm and contemplative that I thought at first they were 
statues. We rode the train and the carousel and an exceptionally kind zoo employee went out of his way for me. I had bought a souvenir cup at lunch and refilled it with water which I was sharing with the kids. While I was watching Zoe climb a very tall net structure, Zeke finished the water and went over to recycle the cup. I tried to stop him, shouting that I had bought the cup to keep, and he pushed it further into the recycling big and then hung his head, Charlie Brown style, which he does when he realizes he did something wrong but seems powerless to stop himself. The zoo employee, who was on duty at the climbing structure, but there was no one else there but Zoe, said he would be right back and he went to get me another cup. I thought that was amazingly kind of him. It wasn’t a big thing, but he really didn’t have to do it at all, and I never would have asked. We watched a clever and engaging puppet show called Old MacDonald’s Farm. I bet you think you already know the story, but there was really a lot more to it than you’d expect, and it was quite well done. Then we made our own chicken puppets, even the grown-ups. We visited quite a few gift shops and came away with too many souvenirs (the number diminished at each stop), except at the Children’s Museum where we bypassed the gift shop altogether because the kids’ behavior there was especially unpleasant.
I learned more about my Dad’s family–that they used to drive from the Bronx to Yonkers on Saturdays to visit Grandma Yeager and eat delicious Hungarian food, and take leftovers home. I learned that Grandpa Rosenblatt was some sort of peddler and that he traveled back and forth from Romania to the US but once to Argentina–speaking only Yiddish– for some time because he couldn’t get back in the US, and Grandma Rosenblatt worried that he was going to abandon the family so she sent Max (my grandfather) to America when he was a teenager to make sure his father would send for her and her daughter Sara. I learned that my dad and his brother and sister and their mom spent several summers at a bungalow colony in upstate New York, which they loved, and my Uncle Larry and his friend went fishing and unexpectedly caught an eel. And there’s more, for another post another time.
We enjoyed seeing my Uncle Larry appear suddenly as Bobo the Clown, which initially frightened Zeke but then delighted all of us with magic tricks and corny jokes and a couple skits. Zeke was still talking today about how funny it was when Bobo the Clown was trying to sleep and a bee was bothering him. Zeke cracked up both watching and remembering the scene.
We enjoyed eating authentic Southern junk food at the Varsity in Atlanta. I had two hot dogs with chili and slaw. I don’t think I’ve had hot dogs like that–or that good–since my Nana died because I used to have them at her house. Chili and slaw in Arlington are not the same. This morning we hit Waffle House. I was reminded of my desire to eat at Waffle House by the Waffle House-replica kitchen at the Children’s Museum, where Zeke served Aunt Susan a stack of six fried eggs. I decided we would stop and eat not long after we left Atlanta this morning, worried that we wouldn’t encounter another Waffle House. As it turns out, there was one about every other exit for hundreds of miles. Not to worry. I took my aunt’s advice and ordered hash browns covered and smothered. 
The kids had chocolate chip waffles. Which means I ate my breakfast and half of Zeke’s waffle while he ate bacon and my biscuit.
I love how Zeke made himself completely at home with all of my family members, most of whom he’d either never met or hadn’t seen in years. And if you’re three and you haven’t seen someone in years, you might as well never have met them. He just jumped right in with no hesitation. Zoe is more circumspect, but still enjoyed bonding with the family, especially getting silly with my uncle and glimpsing the glamorous lives of her older cousins–ages 12, 14, and 16. As soon as we left each of our family’s houses, she declared that she missed them already.
I almost forgot how we started the trip with the Insane Inflatable 5K in Virginia Beach. Zoe and I signed up for this fresh off her excitement about the Girls on the Run 5K she ran with my sister in May. We watched videos of the Insane Inflatable 5K and it looked fun. And it 
was, mostly. It was also very hot that day and traversing those inflatables was way harder than we anticipated. But we did it, and we were proud of ourselves. And I got a migraine later that day but that’s to be expected. We also enjoyed the Children’s Museum of Virginia that afternoon. I think I am done with Children’s Museums for a while.
I did not accomplish much of anything else this week. I thought I’d be able to squeeze in some work because this week was a completely inconvenient time for me to take off, in terms of my work schedule, but this week was when we could make the trip. So, sorry clients. I’ll be back on task next week. I was so exhausted I fell asleep two nights this week putting Zeke to bed, and stayed asleep for the night. I apologized to my uncle for being antisocial but he said he understood. I am thankful to everyone we visited for their flexibility. They were all remarkably solicitous and accommodating.
The last leg of our journey is tomorrow. Roughly six more hours to go, not counting stops to eat and pee, of which there are always plenty. We had a terrific adventure, but we are all ready to be home. And now it’s time to claim my sliver of bed, next to Zeke and Kitty Kat and Uh Oh Dog. Good night.
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I am constantly worried that people are judging my children (and thereby judging me as a parent). If my baby is crying, I worry that they will judge him to be a bad baby or me to be a bad mother who is unable to soothe her fussy baby. When people ask, “is he a good baby?” I feel like they’re suggesting that if he’s not (what’s a good baby anyway?) that somehow he is defective or I am defective. In my mind there is a great deal of weight attached to well-meaning or innocuous comments or questions from strangers or friends. I’ve wondered for the past several weeks if Zoe’s teachers or other adults at school think she is neglected because her has rarely been brushed since her brother was born. Dad has been taking her to school each day so I can rest or nurse and hairbrushing is often one of the items that gets dropped from the morning to do list. Which is fine, in the scheme of things. She is dressed in clean clothes and she is fed and she usually brings her lunch. But still.
When I am driving and I do something I know is wrong, or slightly illegal, I often compose excuses or justifications in my head as part of imaginary conversations with police officers who might pull me over. I am sincerely repentant and simultaneously indignant about being theoretically called on minor offenses. I don’t think other people have these conversations in their heads. Do they?
I don’t know how long I have felt this shadow of judgment looming over me, but it’s been a long time.
One time at lunch a friend of mine–whose frankness and fierceness I admire and also am a little scared of–said she doesn’t really care what anyone thinks of her. She wondered, but seemingly without too much concern, if that was a bad thing. Instinctively, I think it is. But I am on the other end of the spectrum and that is a bad thing too. I think caring what other people think of you helps you be more compassionate and sympathetic, maybe more reliable. Who knows? But obsessing about what other people think and whether they are evaluating your every move is not helpful.
I’m reading the new book by Glennon Melton, the mom and blogger behind Momastery. Glennon’s whole thing is about how we, as moms, or really as humans, need to love more and judge less. She has plenty of personal history that would be easy to judge, and she freely admits where her faults and imperfections still lie. And she is so reassuring. Clearly this is why thousands of people read her blog and comment on her Facebook posts and show up at her readings. If she is such a mess and still such a wonderful person who is clearly trying to do the right thing, and often succeeding, and bringing so much love into the lives of people around her and the total strangers for whom she organizes “love flash mobs” to help in times of crisis, we must be all right too. Right?
When Zoe was born I struggled with feeling isolated as a new mom. Even though I had friends with babies, they all seemed to be far away. We don’t live in a neighborhood filled with kids. Everyone seemed to work. I went to Moms Club events but didn’t seem to connect with anyone or have the opportunity to have a conversation longer than a few minutes because of all the crying babies. I didn’t take a childbirth class or prenatal yoga class where I bonded with all the other moms. It wasn’t until Zoe started preschool at one-and-a-half that I felt like I started to make some local mom friends. Thankfully I am still friends with some of those moms.
But with one exception, none of them have newborns. And though I swore I’d do it differently this time, when you have a kindergartener already, it’s difficult to do everything you want to do. So I find myself again feeling kind of lonely at home, trying to balance relaxing and nursing and trying to be zen with going out and interacting with people to feel sane. Today at Trader Joe’s I wore Zeke in a baby carrier while I shopped. It took him a while to settle down so I was kind of jiggling and rocking as I pushed the cart along, and frequently slid my hands inside the carrier to adjust him to try to make him more comfortable. The whole time I was wondering if people were looking at me, if they thought I was doing it right or wrong. A few people smiled. There were a couple other moms wearing babies and one of them complimented Zeke’s hair. In the parking lot afterward there was a woman getting out of her car, right next to mine, who was carefully inserting her baby into a carrier on her chest, and then extracting her toddler from the car. I asked the mom about her carrier and we chatted briefly. She was friendly but clearly on her way to shop. Some part of me felt like saying, “hey we’re both wearing our babies and have two kids! Can we be friends?” But I didn’t. A few weeks ago outside the Giant in my neighborhood I was having a snack while Zeke slept in the stroller, and another mom on the next bench over was doing the same, with a baby who turned out to be just a week younger than Zeke. Before we walked away, I was tempted to ask for her email address so we could meet up at the park. But I didn’t.
In her blog post today, Glennon talked about going to the makeup counter at a department store and striking up a conversation with the makeup lady who ended up having an intense personal story to tell, which Glennon generously listened to and witnessed. I admire her ability to reach out to people–strangers–and make those connections. Sometimes I want to talk with someone so much but I can’t bring myself to do it. Or ask for a little–very little–help from a stranger. Today I took Zeke and myself out to lunch and while I ate my cheeseburger with one hand, I was cradling and nursing him in the other. I finished my drink and wanted a refill. There was a table of 8 women right next to me and I was tempted to ask one if she would mind getting me some more soda, but I couldn’t do it. She probably wouldn’t have minded. I would be delighted to do something like that if I were asked. But people don’t usually ask. Part of me was worried, I think, that people in the restaurant would be judging me, wondering why I was bringing my newborn to a restaurant, or why I was drinking soda while breastfeeding, or why I couldn’t take care of things myself. They probably weren’t. But still.
I’m trying to figure out how I can make myself reach out more. And wondering what to tell myself when I worry that people will judge me for reaching out. Who cares what they think? Clearly, I do. But why?
You Ask a Lot of Questions 