Late Summer Pasta from Paige's Garden

This is what was waiting for me in my garden when I got back from my travels to the East Coast this summer.

Carrots, spring onions, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, oregano...

Yesterday on NPR there was a program about school lunches in the Bay Area, namely about how crappy they are. One commentator pointed out how unconscionable that really is, given the incredible food we have here. And we do--when I think about leaving California, one of the things that holds me back is realizing that I may never have it this good again, food-wise. Besides our tiny garden that somehow managed, over the summer, to yield enough for us to do an egg exchange, we also live around the corner from the best produce market in, well, the world--plus a cheese shop, a fish shop, and the kind of butcher shop where I'd eat almost anything in the place (and trust me, I'm picky).

It all got me thinking about how, while we sometimes struggle to make ends meet and do all the things we want to do--and here in the Bay Area, there is a lot of wealth, so you notice when you have the crappiest car in the lot, if you know what I mean--we are incredibly lucky to have the resources to feed L. good, healthy food.

I am not a food blogger, but today, friends, I am posting a recipe for Late Summer Pasta, which we made last night from some of THIS incredible bounty from my friend Paige's garden. She lives a couple of miles away, which means, in this land of micro-climates, that she can grow real tomatoes and basil like they're going out of style.

Basil, tomatillos, cuke, tomatoes, squash...

Late Summer Pasta (from Paige's garden)

3 very large ripe tomatoes (heirloom or beefsteak), or the equivalent, chopped small

1 cup or so beautiful sweet yellow or orange cherry tomatoes, halved

1 bunch fresh basil, chopped

3 T. capers, or more, to taste

1-2 cloves of garlic, pressed or smooshed into paste with the flat side of a knife

1 container little fresh mozzarella balls or equivalent amount of ricotta salata

A fragrant peppery green extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Maple syrup, agave, honey, or sugar (optional; see below)

Grated lemon rind (optional; see below)

1 pound of pasta, gluten-free or regular (fresh pasta would also be divine)

About two hours before you want to eat, place all the tomatoes in a nonreactive bowl. Add garlic, chopped basil, the capers, salt and pepper to taste, mozzarella or ricotta salata, and a generous glug of olive oil. Toss gently, let sit for 15 to 20 minutes, then taste. You want a nice mix of garlicky, salty, tangy, and sweet. If the tomatoes are too tangy, you’ll need to soften the flavor with a little bit of sweetener. If they’re very sweet and you want more tang, go ahead and grate in some lemon rind.

When you're ready to eat, cook pasta until al dente in salted water. Toss with a bit of olive oil and your sauce. Correct seasoning and serve.

Serves 4.

Note: We ate this with Trader Joe's lemon-pepper pasta for the boys, and Tinkyada gluten-free penne for the Mom. That's me.

Sacrificing Career for Kids

So earlier this week a job opportunity came my way. Well--opportunity sounds lofty. I learned about an interesting teaching job and pursued it to the extent that I talked to a fellow teacher at the school and had planned to send over my CV to the headmaster. It's a temporary position, a few months this spring, at an independent middle school teaching history and Language Arts. I like my current job fine, but change is good, and since I'm adjunct I can always take a semester off and come back (this is the positive spin! The negative? They can always choose not to rehire me). A new job at a new school could be a walk down a new road. You never know, right?

A road. In California.

I was excited about it for a minute, and discussed it with B. over dinner-making the other night.

"So it's eight to eleven, every day, so you'd have to drop off L. at school every morning," I said. "And the job is so far up in the hills I'd have to drive. So you'd be biking L. every morning. And, wait, I volunteer at L.'s school every Friday, so I guess I'd have to ask the board to approve me as a non-participating parent, and pay the extra couple hundred dollars a month to be a non-participating parent, and not get to do that anymore. Hmm."

"We'd also have to start paying for early-morning care," B. said. "I can't get to work as late as 9:30 every day."

Pause. I thought about logistics for a long second. Here is what I thought to myself: We are a one-car family. It rains in the winter in Northern California. So some mornings, the bike doesn't work, and what would B. do then? Furthermore, I have committed to participating at L.'s school. I like participating at L.'s school. L. likes it when I participate at his school. And even if I made more money than I do now at this new job, the added costs of early-morning care and non-participation and gas would potentially make this job financially disadvantageous. For a one-semester gig? That might open a door, sure, but who knows?

So I let it go.

"Is that a real bummer?" B. asked me.

And that's what I've been thinking about. Was it a bummer?

The bare truth is that no, it was not a bummer. It was actually, really, totally, okay.

Bummer

But the experience has gotten me thinking. I'm always interested in momming and work, and the choices we have to make as parents. A friend with two teenage kids told me the other day that though she'd looked into a great graduate program that she desperately wanted to attend, she realized she couldn't do it because it would be way too stressful for her children. These opportunities come up, and sometimes, because we have kids, we miss them. I realize that my current job is dead-end. I realize this a little too often. Everyone knows that adjunct lecturing doesn't usually lead to tenure-track professoring, lots of prestige, or lots of money. Hell, I don't even have benefits through my job. But what it does give me is some stimulation, some experience, enough money to justify the hours I work unpaid (on writing, on blogging, on housecleaning and laundry) when L. is at school. And those things are not to be sneered at. When L. is older, maybe I will have a more prestigious work life. But that time, I'm afraid, is not now.

Eek--what would Anne Marie Slaughter think?

How about you, readers? What career sacrifices have you made for your kids? How do you balance working and parenting?

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

First change first: I believe I made it easier to comment on my blog. You used to have to have some sort of profile, but no more--now I am accepting anonymous posts. So, if you'd like to share some thoughts, now is the time. I'd love to know that people are reading!
--

L, first day of school.

The end of summer, for me, is always a time of change. Since I stopped hating school in the latter elementary years I have found these late August/early September days to be a lovely time of renewal and growth. (I've always found this a bit ironic, since actually, in fall, everything is dying.) Now that I'm on year two of living in the part of Northern California where the seasons are so subtle you barely notice when they flip over, I'm detecting a slight pigmentation change in the leaves, a little more briskness in the air, and a feeling of excitement about what's to come this year: with my writing, with my family, with my teaching. Fall is here!

L. has had a big change: he started preschool. I wasn't sure, quite honestly, what the difference between preschool and his previous daycare situation would be--and part of me lamented switching him, since life at Lorena's was so fulfilling. But a week into a cooperative preschool, I'm so glad we did. I am having a mini-love affair with the whole experience: the consistency of a daily schedule, the quality of the teachers, the nice parents, the cute kids, the sand pile and the art materials and the trains and the animals and the playdough, oh! L. is more stimulated than he's been in months, I am enjoying the community, and the transition has been virtually seamless.

A big change is the cooperative nature of this new school; I volunteer there every Friday. And we all have administrative jobs to do, like fundraising, buildings & grounds, membership. My job? Playdough maker. I repeat: playdough maker.

Here is a picture of my kitchen overrun with vomit-colored goop that was absolutely impossible to mix.

Five minutes later, it still wouldn't budge.

Finally, I wised up and got out the Kitchenaid mixer.

Of course, the biggest changes of all are in L. himself, who is growing up so, so fast. On the first day of school I had this sensation that I'd blink my eyes and find that instead of driving up to the gates of preschool I'd be dropping him off at college. He's tall, he's talkative, and he doesn't want to sit on my lap at circle time. It's all happening so fast. I guess if you love them you just gotta let them grow up, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. 

Hilarious!

A blog post you may find as funny as I did.

More soon!

Love,

S

Talk.

Today I am ruminating on talk.

I do too much of it. I wish I listened more. Not that I am a bad listener--more like, I just wish my life included less of the talking/listening/talking spectrum and more non-verbal tasks. Preschool co-op meeting last night, a friend's reading tonight, school meetings yesterday, school meetings today, school starting next week. Talk talk talk talk talk.

And then there's L. A bit over a week ago, when I was still with my parents back East, I woke around 7:00 a.m. to the sounds of L. and Grampa in the living room looking at an animal book. Grampa couldn't get a word in edgewise. L. was saying, "That's a baby cheetah. I'm the baby cheetah, you're the Grampa cheetah, Mumma's the Mumma cheetah, Daddy's the Daddy cheetah! That's an elephant. I'm the baby elephant, you're the Grampa elephant, Mumma's the Mumma elephant, hey Grampa! Did you know elephants live in Africa? And sometimes India? These are called trunks. These are called trunks. Baby cheetahs don't have trunks, of course. Ack-shley, I'm a baby tiger...."

Cute, I thought.

By one p.m., four p.m., seven p.m., same deal. HE HAD NOT STOPPED. I told someone about it the next day, e.g., "Yesterday, L. started talking at 7:00 and didn't stop until bedtime!"--until I realized it was bedtime a week later and he still hadn't stopped talking. 

I've been really thrilled--blessed, even--to have a verbal kid. I knew we were in for it when he had complete sentences well before two. I knew things were heating up when he started busting out words like "similar," "foundation," and "investigate." It is such a joy to have a kid who can convey his needs to you verbally. I have not once worried that L. is delayed linguistically (I've had other worries; we all do). But a kid who can talk well can also argue well, and attempt to talk his way out of things, and pitch fits with the rest of them when my talk isn't the talk he wants to hear.

Just this morning I attended an enlightening session on empathy in teaching. You know, instead of shutting down a problem student, empathizing. Instead of saying "That's inappropriate," you say, "It seems like you feel really comfortable sharing personal details." Instead of saying, "Please stop yelling at me," you say, "Wow, it seems like you're really passionate/angry/excited about this issue."

I'm going to try more of this in the classroom this semester. And more of it with L., especially at bedtimes. "It seems like you're really frustrated that it's time to lie quietly in your room with Daniel [blankie] until you fall asleep." Or "It seems like you're sad that it's bedtime. Should we talk about all the fun things we might do tomorrow?"

Hmm. Could I say, "It seems like you're really f&*^ing argumentative today, L., and Mumma's sick of it"?

Nah. Seems like that's over the line.

Daddy Skills

As you may have gleaned from my silence, I have been on vacation!

Well, sort of. I think before I had a kid--and before I had the nebulous career of online writing teacher--vacation meant something a little different. I have just, almost, about, finished my final grades for the semester, but for the past two weeks I've been working, albeit in a beautiful setting (coastal Maine). Which is kind of like vacation but not quite. And of course, being on vacation with your three-year-old is kind of like vacation with an early daily wake-up call. I can't complain. I have been with my parents, who have gotten up with L. approximately three out of five mornings, and have watched him while I've been working. And here in New England we're surrounded by uncles and aunts and cousins, all of whom have been amazingly helpful. That proverbial village! Best of all, the Papa of the operation has just joined us!

In that vein, I'll keep this short. B. sent me this rap by the same people who did "It's Gettin' Real in the Whole Foods Parking Lot." It's about Dadding, and it made me laugh. Enjoy.

Love,

Susie

Equality

A dear friend and I were talking the other night about equality and how it plays out in parenting, especially in the first six months to a year, when so many women choose to stay home--and often, then, either don't go back to work or feel unfulfilled when they do, perhaps because, in the intervening time, they missed a promotion or got otherwise left behind. (This talk started as yet another convo about that Anne-Marie Slaughter article, incidentally.) My friend, who is not a mom but is thinking about it, really doesn't get why so many women lose their careers when they have kids--and, on a related note, why more men don't stay home with their children instead. If society were truly equal, she said, wouldn't there be an alternative to the model of the mom staying home? Couldn't it be just as normal, just as incentivized, if you will, for dads to stay home and moms to go right back to work? Couldn't maternity leave and paternity leave be interchangeable, letting the parents decide who took what?

But moms have the goods, I said. The boobs.

But if, my friend asked, you formula-fed, couldn't you just go right back to work if you wanted to?

I've been thinking about this conversation since it happened. I think my friend's point was not that all women should formula-feed (or experience the pumping room) and get back in the saddle asap, but that women should have more choice about whether or not to work--that moms staying home should not be a given, the most obvious choice, the easiest choice. After all, she said, if society were equal, wouldn't there be another way to do things if you were a mom who just didn't want to stay home with your kid?

After thinking about this for a couple of days, I've come to these conclusions:

1. Yes.
2. But no.
3. But maybe yes.

Beyond the obvious issues with going right back to work (the bleeding, the healing, the resting after you've just run the marathon of your life, twice), I'm hung up on the tits, I must say. I'm a breastfeeding devotee. I stopped nursing my son at 15 months, but when we were in it, we were in it. Because I could breastfeed, and because L. loved it ("L," I'd ask, "Do you want to nurse?" "Hmm--hmm--hmm--hmm--hmmm!!" he'd reply), I sank right in. Breastfeeding was totally wonderful for me. I believe the many studies that show that kids who are breastfed are smarter, healthier, etc., and I think I can be this sanctimonious about this because...

I was not breastfed. And you all know I am a few sandwiches short of a picnic, plus overweight and unhealthy to boot.

(idiomcomics.com)

But seriously. Breastfeeding was my personal choice, and I was lucky, lucky, lucky to be able to do it for over a year while I stayed home with my son--sort of. At ten months I started working from home, part-time, and soon thereafter he started going to a nanny share three mornings a week, an arrangement that has morphed into our current scenario: he's in daycare three days, I'm home with him two. I think nursing L created an amazing bond between us. These days he is as partial to his dad as he is to me, but in the earlier days, nursing was this thing--this event, this experience, this verb--that stuck the two of us like glue. It was better than writing, even. It was lovely. Not the actual sucking, I mean, but the sweet symbiosis of being together in that way, that particular way that is so biologically humdrum and yet so completely unlike anything I had ever done before. I believe that, if it is at all possible, that every kid, and mother, should get to have that experience. I do.

But here's the bigger point.

I realized that when my friend and I were talking about equality, we were talking about paid work or work that has creative payoff--work that's public, intellectual, and monetarily valuable. Our whole basis for "equality" was about who "goes back to work." My issue with this notion is that in some sense it devalues Momming as work. I'm not blaming my friend for that--I'm saying that that's what we've been led to believe: that Momming is not work. Being in the office or the classroom or wherever else is the work.

When I say that it sounds like I'm making that classic and tired yet true statement that mothers aren't valued in society. Fine! We're undervalued. So are lots of other people. Let's move on. My point is more that--well, what if a woman should stay home with her kid, because no one else can really give the kid that foundation that's established by nursing? And what if that might be the most feminist, empowering choice in the world? What if nursing and nurturing were the work? What if that was just a given, and no one thought it made a woman "unequal?" I think that's what worries me: that when we talk too much about equality we end up sounding like it's the raw lot, the chump change, just more of your womanly troubles, to have to stay home and nurse your kid for a bit. Maybe it's just what you sign up for when you decide to become a mom, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Hmm.

Slippery slope.

Slippery slope because there are more and more different kinds of parents out there: adoptive parents, gay parents, parents who are parenting their partners' kids from previous marriages. Many, many babies come into this world in a very different scenario than mine did (you know, born on the Norwegian dole, for which I am forever thankful). And do I think those babies should be formula fed by their two dads? I do. Do I think those babies will be as loved, and as happy, and likely as healthy, if they're fed formula by their adoptive straight parents, both of whom have gone back to work? I do.

(sirlin.net)

I feel sort of refreshed when I meet a kid who is at the playground with his stay-at-home dad; at the same time, I feel wistful for the working mom heading to the pumping room at work (mostly because I wonder how exhausted she is). I feel sorry for some of the SAHMs I meet who seem so tired, so absolutely spent, so spiritually dead, so depressed. Amazed by the ones who are invigorated and joyful, who are clearly thriving with their three kids, one on the back, on one the playground, one off at school. Their skin is gorgeous, their family bed is über-comfy.

I know these moms and more.

And I know a few who, after their kids were born, found that their careers didn't make sense any more. They wanted to stay home, yes, but they also weren't sure what paid work would even look like anymore. Not because they missed the promotion, though maybe that was part of it; more because their mindsets had changed and what they were doing before seemed small and unfulfilling. I expect this is a tough spot to be in.

I'm lucky in a lot of ways--and I don't mean that to sound smug but rather, grateful, and since I can be quite negative, I want you to take note of this gratitude--but one of them is that I'm able, these days, to do my Momming alongside my writing and my teaching. I don't feel lost in parenting. Having a child has not changed the trajectory of what I want to do; it's slowed it down a little, diverted it, become a part of it, enriched it, complicated it, made it messier and more loveable and more meaningful, but not hijacked the whole thing of it. I still love my work. I still do my work. That hasn't changed.

I think maybe that's what my friend is afraid of: having her life hijacked. I can really understand that fear, because I had it too. I wish I could reassure her that if she does have a child, she'll figure it out.