Nannies and Boyfriends

Sometimes I wonder if my brain works very differently than other peoples’. It seems that I can’t have an experience without somehow tying it to something else in my life. I mean, I guess that’s how we all operate on some level, to process change. But for me sometimes it feels more like a game of Concentration. I turn over one Jack and know I’ve seen another Jack somewhere…but where was it? It’s fun to me to make the connection.

So Shelly. Our nanny. As I’ve not been shy about sharing, we got off to a rocky start. I was returning to work after a year off. Mark was traveling for business. Shelly was new to all of us. And in addition to the new job, new team, new industry, I had a new commute which I’d yet to understand the traffic/distance and timing ins-and-outs of.

Most of my family and friends offered their shoulders for me to unburden myself upon that first week. I was going to be 5 minutes late getting home on my second day of work, and Shelly’s reaction was less than easy-going. It was a stressful interaction with her that dominoed to Kate also being stressed, and especially without Mark here to help me wrangle with it, the whole experience lead me to question where she was truly The One to care for Kate.

Well since then the job has become less new. I have an understanding of the intricacies of the commute. Mark has been traveling less for work. And I ironed out some issues with Shelly’s hours that allow me more wiggle room in my drive home. She and I have also gotten to know each other better. And she and Kate have clearly forged a bond.

And yet, the outpouring of support from those family members and friends who had my back when I was sure the nanny should go, haven’t all caught up with our current state of contentedness. When they inquire whether we’ve found someone new, I feel the need to justify and explain why we haven’t and how we’ve had a change of heart. And still I worry that the kind inquirer won’t really believe me, or think I’ve made the best decision.

It leaves me feeling like you do when you and your boyfriend have a fight, or break up, or he just does something jerky. You do what any typical gal does–reach out to your posse for support. And often that support comes in the form of “you’re too good for him,” “you should ditch the dope” and sometimes even the candid I’m-telling-you-this-because-I’m-your-friend-and-care-about-you “I never really liked him in the first place.”

Which all gets a bit sticky once the incident that set off all the need for all the extra love and support is past, and you find yourself back together with said BF and feeling all butterfly-stomachy in love again. Those conversations in which you and you friends fantasized about him getting afflicted with a lifetime worth of he’ll-never-date-again acne suddenly need to be swept under the carpet by all parties. When both groups are together again, say, you sitting on your parent’s couch snuggling with the guy who they know did you wrong, you’re aware that your parents are secretly still cursing him, but you want them to see that he’s changed! He’s different now! Everything is okay–really.

Alas, I fear that’s where I’ve landed with poor Shelly. Will she ever meet a friend without them wondering what it was she was so hopped-up to get to that she couldn’t stay 5 extra minutes with Kate that evening? Are they judging me and Mark as parents who really should find another nanny but are maybe just too lazy? Or worse, don’t care enough about who watches Kate?

And maybe in my most self-doubting moments, do I fear that they are right?

In my Mental Game of Concentration, I have to compare it to yet another thing. It’s like looking for apartments. When you’re looking, you want it all–hardwood floors, fireplace, parking, walk to BART. And when you finally get a place you’re thrilled that you didn’t have to take that place that was so dark, or expensive, or whatever. But you still can torture yourself with the fantasy that the perfect reasonably-priced rental with a hot tub in back and a Viking range was out there and you missed it.

Ah, well. Yesterday I went for a walk with Kate when I got back from my work trip in LA. I was looking up at the Berkeley hills and remembering when we just moved here how I felt so misplaced in this neighborhood. (After a dozen years in Noe Valley, it’s no wonder.) But now, I look up at those hills and revel in their beauty. I look at our little local library and the coffee shops and people with their yoga mats tucked under their arms waiting to cross the street, and I think of how lucky we are to be here. Without a doubt, this is home now.

Our rocky start aside, I’ve been getting some of that feel-good vibe from Shelly recently too. Seeing the great healthy meals she cooks for Kate, the way she teaches her little games and how to blow kisses. The care and concern she’s expressed in the past couple days about Kate’s runny nose.

Hopefully some day all the friends who have ever heard me kvetch about Shelly will know that Mark, Kate and I feel content and lucky to have found her, and confident that we have the right nanny–even if there may be one out there who’s just as good who charges a little less.

Sending Love to Mrs. D, Wherever She Is

Amelia’s mother died today. I don’t think I’ve even begun to fathom that she is gone.

She was as good as a second mother to me. Someone who I leaned on when my mother was sick and then departed. I don’t know what it will be like to go to Bristol and not be able to visit her. Sit at her table in her bright kitchen with the fish wallpaper and the multi-colored chairs that Amelia painted in high school. Sit at the table and have a cup of tea or cocoa and maybe some Greek dessert Mr. D brought home from one of his restaurant-owner friends. And talk in that totally comfortable homey way that has no pretension or need for a can-I-come-over-now? call or even the need to be showered, social, or in a good mood.

The thing is that it’s not even the more recent visits to Mrs. D’s kitchen, centered around taking Kate to show her off, that are most fresh in my memory. I remember sitting there on freezing RI nights in high school like it was yesterday. I swear there were times when it was colder in their house than it was outside, and that’s with the wind coming off the water. (Mr. D was renowned for being cheap about turning up the heat.) I’ve also been there for countless Forth of July’s from childhood to adulthood. I can hear in my mind Mrs. D with her unique almost haughty-sounding accent. She’s holding me in front of her with her hands on my shoulders pointed at some Greek or Italian relative, and asking, “Do you know Kristen? Fred and Vicki Bruno’s youngest? Well really at this point she’s practically my daughter too.”

Once in high school when Amelia’s lose-a-few pounds diet had clearly gone beyond the point of healthiness, I confronted Mrs. Demopulos in that same kitchen. Somehow I’d managed to find a time when no one else was around and I screwed up my courage to get to the bottom of things. Why had she let Amelia get so thin, so sick? Why wasn’t she doing anything about it? How could she let this happen?

In my New England upbringing I’d never dream of calling an adult by their first name, never mind being so brazen and disrespectful as to confront them this way. But I was also driven by the passion of a teenager who knows they are doing the right thing. And by my love for Amelia, whose health and life I was suddenly scared shitless about.

God knows what I had said that day or how I said it, but Mrs. D in her proud manner and New England private way stiffened her back and brushed me off. It was the first (and only time) I felt a divide between us, and that fact alone made me even more scared about how catastrophic whatever was happening had the potential to be. In a clipped manner and with few words, she assured me they were dealing with it. She gave me no insight into what “it” even was, or what they were doing, or how I could help, and most of all she gave me no assurance that it would be okay. And eventually it was. But I never talked to Mrs. D about it again, and really never talked to Amelia about it either.

I always love going home to Rhode Island as anyone who knows me knows. It’s beautiful there. I’ve got family and friends who have known me since I toddled out of the bathroom at Sam’s Pizza with my pants and underwear around my legs asking for help. The food is good and familiar and practically all the places that I’ve liked eating at since I was a kid are still in business. And everywhere you go people, some who you don’t even recognize, know you. There’s something about that history that keeps a gal real and grounded.

So, in the time that I went off to Ohio for college, or to Paris to study, or moved to NYC, or finally away to San Francisco. In the time that I had small jobs that grew to bigger jobs, or boyfriends who I was crazy about, or brought home, or just talked about dreamily, or lamented that I’d been dumped by. In the time that I had bad asymmetrical haircuts, or gained my freshman 15, or thought I was Miss Thing for wearing a suit to my big-deal job, I always had home to touch down on to put everything in perspective.

And no matter how cool, or smart, or city-savvy, or in love, or engaged or pregnant you are, when you’re sitting at the table at the Demopulos’ house, you are still just Kristen. Still just Fred and Vicki’s youngest. There’s no air that you can put on that can’t be seen through in a second. What’s amazing was through it all I was never laughed out of the place. I was never called on my attitude or pretension or fashion-don’t of the moment. And I have no doubt there were many times when they had to stifle laughter or the desire to slap me back into reality. And sure, sometimes I did get brought down to earth. But mostly I was cheered on, questioned, inspected, embraced, and told to put on one of the many sweaters Mrs. D had made. “No we won’t turn the heat up.”

The last time I saw Mrs. Demopulos she gave Kate some books. She’d asked me what it was that Kate really needed and I’d turned her in that direction. Of all the special books Kate has gotten from family and friends, for some reason no one but Mrs. Demopulos has inscribed them, and I’ve often wished people had, since many of them are real keepers.

When I first introduced Kate to Mrs. D last Christmas I handed the baby to her and said, “This is Grandma Frances.” It was my little way of expressing the respect and special place that she held in my world, and by transference, Kate’s. At the time I didn’t even know that it had registered with her. But this summer, after she gave me the books and verified that we didn’t already own them, she grabbed a pen to inscribe them, and as she wrote she slowly said aloud, “To Kate, with love from Grandma Frances, July 2006,” and I was touched that she had clearly taken note of (and maybe even pride in) her special title.

What’s surreal about the fact that Mrs. Demopulos died today (a phrase it horrifies me to even type) is that it won’t even really hit me that she’s gone until the next time that I’m home and I have to fight the way my body is hard-wired to go to her house to see her.

But I don’t even pretend to suffer a millionth of what her family is going through now. Amelia is giving birth to what would be Frances’ first grandchild in two weeks.

HMS Pinafore, Kate, and a Mama’s Fierce Love

In a lifetime that’s been characterized by obsessive parental love, Miss Kate is currently experiencing a particularly high period of maternal adoration. Or, to say it more plainly: My God, can I love this baby any more?

It would almost be sickening except for the fact that it’s just at the apex of intensity without reaching that I’m-so-excited-I-have-a-headache place.

I’ve described my pride and excitement about Kate in high school play terms before. (This probably relates to what I’ve realized as an adult was my freakishly positive and happy high school experience.) At any rate, the play thing is something I use to explain how I feel about the fact that my dad and oldest sister and a ton of other family and friends don’t get to see Kate anywhere near as much as I wish they could. To me it’s like when you’re in the high school play. You’ve been rehearsing for so long, memorizing lines, singing your heart out, putting all your extra energy into it. You get to that place where you surpass the fear that it could be terrible and even arrive at the realization that it will be really quite good. When the performances finally arrive and your family is in the audience watching, you’re so damn proud of yourself and happy and excited to have them there. It’s a total high.

Okay, so stay with me here. Having Kate is like being in this incredible Broadway performance in the lead role and singing and performing in a way that is so exceptional and impressive that it astounds even you. It totally exceeds your expectations. But the thing is, instead of getting that thrill that everyone you care about and want to be proud of you (and sure, even those who you want to impress) will come, the fact is that people can’t make it to every performance. So sometimes you’re there bursting with pride and excitement and a desire to show off, and there’s no outlet for it.

Especially with my mother gone, I get these sudden pangs of wanting her to be able to see how amazing Kate is. To even just look at her her beautiful sweetness once. Those times are this whole feeling at its worst.

So sometimes it’s like Mark and I are just here in our little house in Oakland that just seems like any other little house but if you were to look inside you’d see that there is this wonder child who is being more beautiful and smart and sweet than you could ever imagine a baby to be. Whose little naked butt when she’s standing up holding onto the edge of the bathtub as she watches the water fill it up is so ridiculously cute you need to kiss it (yes, actually kiss her ass!). And all of this is just happening in here night after night with people just naively walking by outside having no idea!

Sometimes I just have to out and tell people, like my sister Marie when we’re on the phone, “My God, you have to see this baby. Like right now.” Of course it’s impossible for her to crawl through the phone line. But I really have thought that if she knew what Kate was doing at that moment and how great it was, she’d get on a cross-country plane immediately.

I guess it’s just in my nature to want to share great stuff. In the middle of an amazing massage I spend half the time thinking of how I have to get Mark to get a massage just like it. And part is just the exuberant braggart in me who wants to shout about Kate from the rooftops. “Amazing baby here! She giggles! She points at random things and says, ‘Ba ba!’ She has soft blonde hair with little wispy curls! She puts her head down on your shoulder to hug you! She says ‘baby’ like a CD that’s skipping and it’s so damn silly and funny and sweet you’d just love it, I know!”

Sometimes when I get swept up I call Ellen to see if she wants to come over last minute for dinner. Of course it’s in the guise of wanting to see her and the kids. And sure I do want to see them. But I also just really want them to see Kate.

Anyway, most of the time the last-minute dinners don’t work out, or we’re just in our day-to-day family routine. So what happens when it’s just us is that Mark and I marvel to each other. Sometimes Mark will just look at me with his eyes wide and say, “That baby.” And I know he means, “My God she is so staggeringly amazing. We are so lucky. How could we ever love anything quite so much?” Word to that, Dada.

And thankfully we do get opportunities to see other people who genuinely share our excitement. The mother’s group mamas totally appreciate all the other mamas’ babies. We thump each other on the backs regularly about the wonder of each other’s small beings. It’s nice.

And of course, when we do get to see grandparents, we get to connect with those who are similarly afflicted with The Crazy Love Glee. In Kentucky Peggy told us how Kate held her arms out for Gary (a.k.a. Papa) to pick her up, and I know he must have just melted. In that church-basement-sharing kind of way, it feels good to be around others who share our disease.

I guess all this is one reason why having Kate makes me want to spend the holidays with extended family more than ever. I’m so excited about The Miller Family Thanksgiving (TM) just because we can all hang out and delight in Kate and Gavin and family and love and luck.

And after two years of Mark unsuccessfully jockeying for the whole “starting our own family traditions at home” thing, this year he wins. We’ll stay in California for Christmas. It’s not that I won’t be happy being with Mark and Kate. Just the opposite really. I’ll be giddy with joy and love and pride and thankfulness. It’s just that sometimes when I feel that way I wish I could have all my family and friends experiencing it right there with me, and cheering me on from the audience.

Making Client Nice-Nice

I’m living proof that there’s no such thing as a part-time job. The other night after putting Kate to sleep I was up until 11:30 reading work documents. Last night it was 9:00, composing an email to a client after a big meeting. But the thing is, I’m totally digging it.

Yesterday I went to a meeting with a client who has been less-than-pleased with some of the work we’ve done. And she’s someone who sets the bar high, which I’d totally do too if I were a client. So I’m going to meet her for lunch and I felt like the team at my office was squirting water in my mouth, rubbing my shoulders and sending me into the ring. Everyone was saying good luck as if I was chum about to be tossed in a shark tank. And I wasn’t really worried about it. But it was nice to have my new posse looking out for me. Made me feel like in the couple weeks I’ve been there I’ve been welcomed into the fold.

And the fact is, I love a good challenge. Especially when it’s about connecting with someone, getting to the bottom of what is bugging them, you know–making nice-nice with the client and turning the ship around. And it’s nothing fake that I bust out. I guess I just took the advice an old boss gave to me once years ago which was simply to put myself in the client’s shoes. At the time I was sticking up so vehemently for the internal team I’d lost sight of the fact that what the client wanted was totally reasonable.

So anyway, the night before my meeting I did my background reading. Printed out my driving directions. Carefully picked out an outfit and ironed it. And Kate even pulled one for the team by sleeping 12 hours straight so I could get a good night’s sleep. (What a peach.)

I feel like much of the time I brace myself for something it ends up being not half-bad. My meeting was totally do-able—somewhat positive and definitely productive. I heard some honest feedback on the team’s past performance, and it was neither crushing nor unrealistic. And I also think I made some inroads into determining ways I could help solve some of their problems. It was hardly a love-fest, but it felt like a solid first step toward developing a good relationship with the clients.

Of course, I’m all of two hours into working with them. The thing that’s challenging and fun and totally unnerving at times about client work is, just like anywhere else, it takes a while to develop trust and gain credibility. And at times you feel like despite whatever history you’ve established, you’re still only as good as your last presentation or conference call. But that’s what keeps me on my toes and gives me momentum to forge through late work nights. That and the satisfaction of feeling like even after a year of being out of the game, I can still give good client.

Spell Check Can Be Funny

Today spell-check identified my last name–McClusky–as a word it didn’t recognize, and therefore thought it was something I’d spelled wrong. The suggestion it made for what it thought I was trying to type was “Clunky.”

After spending a lot of time trying to come up with baby names that went well with McClusky, that really hit home.

Ah, yes. Clearly I have returned to the world of the working. I am finding spell check funny. I guess you get your work-day amusement where you can.

To Hell with Cancer

I really hate to always have something to whine about these days but the preponderance of cancer I’ve been hearing about seems a legitimate reason.

First I find out that my friend Barb has a 40-year-old friend with late stage lung cancer. Never smoked a day in her life. Then Blanca, Kate’s former Thursday babysitter, tells me her father has cancer that they first thought was isolated and treatable and later determined was spread throughout his body. Then Mrs. Demopulos, Amelia’s mom, is diagnosed, which is a crushing blow since my mother already got cancer so it doesn’t seem fair that hers should too. And also because I love Mrs. D like a second mother. Then yesterday my father asks me on the phone in the course of an otherwise mundane “how’s the weather there?” conversation whether I’d heard that my Aunt Mary has colon cancer. (I had not.)

Aunt Mary isn’t really an aunt. She was our neighbor growing up and in many ways is closer to my sisters and I than many of our blood relations. I guess the aunts that you pick versus those that you just get can be that way. I mean, not to say anything remotely negative about my “real” aunts–but Aunt Mary is an amazing special person and force of nature. She’s super positive and friendly and fun and a great cook and has tons of energy and a fabulous head of (natural) strawberry blonde hair and you’d never know in a million years that she’s 87. In fact, she’s got so much vim and vigor that she takes care of her 92-year-old sister.

I still don’t know the complete story of what the doctors have said the deal is with Aunt Mary, and with all this other cancer news and Rose having died and the new job and new nanny and Mark traveling for work a lot stress, I kind of just can’t deal right now. Hopefully maybe there is something they can do about it.

Speaking of Mark, he’s away for one night for a work retreat and I’m forlorn like a schoolgirl. I think I’m still feeling the fall-out of the world’s stressiest week last week and while we all continue to transition into me working again, I would just prefer that he be here to sit in the couch with me and pat my hand saying “there there” as needed. Next week he’s away Monday through Thursday in New York. (Don’t tell any robbers.) I may well languish without him.

Speaking of “there there,” I really want to get Kate to sleep through the night more consistently. It’s never fun to be awakened from a deep sleep to go and nurse her, but when I need to wake up at 6:15 the following morning to go to work, it’s particularly unsavory. So, the other night when Kate had already woken up once, we decided Mark would go in the second time and try to get her back to sleep sans boob.

Kate’s pediatrician told us to do the ole Ferber thing of going in and saying in an unemotional tone, “It’s time to go to sleep,” and rubbing her belly to try to calm her down. Mark has done this a handful of times and more often than not it results in Kate losing her shit upon seeing him. It’s clear her internal dialogue then is, “What are you doing in here? I want the one with the boobies! I want miiiiiilk!” She starts crying hysterically and when he comes back into our room I always say to him, “How’d that go?”, and every time I think that’s a really funny thing to say.

What was so weird/funny/great was the other night Mark went in to do what we refer to as “there there” and when he arranged her blankets nicely over her and cooed, “Time to go to sleep,” she actually did! When he got back into bed we didn’t even say anything to each other because we were both bracing for her to lose it (and of course didn’t want to jinx anything). But despite us waiting for the other shoe to drop, she just settled back down into sleep. It was divine.

Of course, when he tried it last night, she lost her shit, and a few minutes later I caved and went in to nurse her. Ah well. As my grandmother used to say with a sigh of resignation, “What are you going to do?”

Tomorrow’s a Brand New Day, Right?

Oy vey. This week has just got to be better than last week. If not, someone please send me a cookie bouquet or something. Sheesh.

So the job seems like it will be good. Smart and funny folks. And everyone is crazy friendly. At times I’ve felt like I’m back in the groove–asking the right questions, making insightful observations in meetings, and even looking natty in my new work clothes. At other times I’ve sputtered out the totally wrong word (voicemail introducing myself to client saying “See you at the lay-off meeting” instead of the “layout meeting.” D’oh!) And then sometimes I get in that kinda sleepy, slap happy mode of being too familiar and jocular with people who instead of having fun with me seem to be mildly freaked out that I’m their new boss and I suddenly realize I should cinch my personality girdle in a bit tighter.

The nanny. We’ve clashed once already when I called to say I was stuck in traffic and would be 5 minutes late and she told me in a not so friendly manner that she just couldn’t stay. She had things to do and somewhere to be. I mean, I appreciate her life and respect her time but it was the second day with a new commute and I was still trying to figure out how long it would all take.

So, in a panic I called four local friends getting voicemails all around and leaving desperate pleas could they please call me if they got this and maybe go to the house and sit with Kate for a few minutes until I screeched into the driveway clutching the steering wheel with sweaty palms and a throbbing headache? No one was home. No one called back. I called the nanny again and really what ensued is too annoying to even go into but suffice it to say I wasn’t left with the warm fuzzies for how she and I will relate under duress.

But thankfully it was a three-day work week since Mark’s cousin Dan was getting hitched in Louisville (pronounced Loo-vul), Kentucky. So Thursday morning with the new-work-and-new-nanny part of the week behind me my alarm clock went off at 4:15AM and I greeted the day by dragging excessive luggage to the car, waking up a sleeping baby and schlepping to the airport in the icy dark morning. Once there I was making a bee-line for the gate since it was boarding time, but looked at my seat number (17A) instead of the gate number (3), so ran the length of the terminal with baby on hip, stroller loaded with large carry-on and carseat strapped to back chanting internally “one foot, the other foot, making progress, I can do it” only to arrive at last at destination, exhale with exhaustion, realize my error and turn around, sweat trickling down my chest, to run back to gate 3 twice as fast since I was really late then. (The argument with the gate attendant about why I couldn’t take the carseat onto the plane for Kate, even though there were free seats, was just gilding the lily.)

In Houston we met Mark. And boy was I crazy happy to see him in that misery loves company or at least loves to complain a lot to someone you really love way. In our second flight he unburdened me of baby, luggage, and most importantly the daunting feeling of doing it all alone (hail to you, single parents!). He really stepped up for much of the weekend too.

And Kentucky was fun at times. The Miller clan is always a hoot to hang out with, and many of Aunt Terry’s Lexington posse we’ve come to know a bit. And Kate had some babies to play with, and grandparents to adore her. Three nights of parties (BBQ, rehearsal dinner, wedding) were all fabulous and social, but really I would have been well-served to sit at home with greasy hair blankly staring at the TV and feeding myself Dove Bars. Since that wasn’t in the cards I did a sort of body cleansing by inbibing excessive amounts of bourbon. Not what I needed to feel rested and geared up for Week Number 2 of New Job, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Time to sleep since I’m already cutting into my much-needed 8 hours. And I know it’s all going to get so much better, if I can just wake up for it.