How do you all do it?!

I'm still knee deep in this school business. Make that waist deep. And it is breaking my heart all over the place. 

I could talk about the issues at hand -- about race and class, about our job to bridge the gap after years of crap and injustice, how attempts at good work are resegregating our system, how middle class white families have left the system so completely that it is no longer designed with mixed schools in mind. It is the most complicated, ickiest thing I have ever looked at. And I see what happens. It is very, very hard to think not just about what's best for your kid, but also about what's best for the most kids in your city. 

I desperately want a place for Margot that gives her big, creative mind room to explore, but I just as desperately want a place for her that isn't walled off from her big, crazy, mixed community. I want her to get to be part of a generation that does something different with all the problems left over from the people that came before her. But I feel that hopelessness creeping in, like these two things just don't exist in the same place at the same time.

This was, and still is, what has excited me so much about the potential at Colton. It has at times felt like we could pull off something really major. But boy oh boy, swimming upstream is so exhausting. 

Not every parent sends their kids to school in a city at a crossroads, but every parent has had to make a choice about where their kid gets educated. I know it is a bigger deal for some families than others, but really, how do you all do it? Is there some way other than just holding your nose and hoping the stink doesn't kill you? 

Two minutes in the life of the Poopster.

Battling a bicycle helmet, ambling around, leaning on pups, squawking.

What Margot's Up To from jackson knowles on Vimeo.

Target Market

I've heard plenty of talk about how people have kids and then become boring. Long held passions for politics, cinema, cuisine and other such adultish pleasures are all supplanted with the monolithic BABY. And, for me, the rumors are turning out to be true on this one. I imagine (hope?) this might ease as she grows up and I settle more firmly into my role as parent, but right now she is pretty much all I can think about. A person might as well be honest about such things, right? 

I used to fancy myself a fairly decent cocktail party-type conversationalist. Not that I've ever really been to a cocktail party. But I used to go to a lot of bars, where we could consume cheap beer and talk about...what? What did I talk about all the time? Oh right -- the world outside my home.

I still read the internets, and have a vague idea about things. I really tried to pay attention to Egypt, but it was hard. Not overthrowing a dictator with peaceful protest hard, but it required great feats of concentration all the same. I am just not the sponge I once was. I am, however, great company for Margot's grandparents, since together we can prattle on happily about her various acheivements. My target market these days consists almost solely of Margot enthusiasts.

Speaking of acheivements, in the last week, she has started waving, pointing, and walking. If you were bearing witness to this speed-of-light type development that kids this age go through, you'd be a spacey marshmallow too. 

Hello, goodbye.

Margot and I part ways from one another at least once a day, almost every day. I go to work, she goes to day care, and occasionally on the weekends her dad and I go do something without her. This leaving each other all time is, as Tupac once said, all good for nobody. 

I like to think (pray, hope, beg, etc) that the time apart is actually pretty good for us all. But the act of saying goodbye just totally, completely sucks. I make a point of always saying goodbye to her when I am headed out, but this isn't always totally obvious or easy. 

In general -- and so far, I should say, since parenting techniques are always shifting around back and forth like the tide -- I am not big on pulling the wool over Margot's eyes. If she is going to get a shot, I tell her it is probably going to hurt a bit. If we are in the car and still half an hour from home, I don't tell her we're almost there when she gets squirmy. And if I'm going to be gone at work all day, I feel like it is important that I tell her so. Of course, all of this is spoken to a child who may or may not have any idea what I am talking about, but it is a philosophical thing, a habit I think is good to get in place. And, heck, maybe it just makes me feel better.

But the trouble with the goodbyes is the part where I leave at the end -- the basic truth being I will not be there to help smooth over the upset. Often I have to decide whether or not to call attention to my departure when she is totally engaged in something else. I wonder if it would be easier to just let the moment slip by, and often I feel guilty that the person who is taking over her care will now have to deal with her meltdown.

So for now, I kiss her on the cheek, and tell her I'll be back soon. If I am holding her as this begins, she sinks her claws into my back. I keep it light and happy and, like all the books say, just make it quick. Like a band aid. I hand her over to her caretaker, and walk out of the room, waving to her as she crumbles at the realization of what is going on. I try my best to hold it together, and to remember that the reality is not all that bad. It is just a daily heartbreak ritual we go through together, but then, of course, apart. 

Polkie Dot Monday

I had a dream last night that Adam woke up with Margot this morning and dressed her in STRIPES, not polka dots. Horror!