25th Percentile!

For parents who were taught as children to place a great deal of importance on their report cards, the periodic, regularly scheduled doctor’s checkup provides the analogous experience projected onto our teeny offspring. At every visit, the nurse measures the kid’s head circumference, length, and of course, weight. Yesterday was Naomi’s 18-month-old visit, and after struggling along since January in the 7th (seventh!) percentile for weight, we have finally succeeded in chunking the kid up to the 25th percentile. Hooray!

There was something about being in the bottom ten percent that made us feel like we were seriously failing at our parental jobs. The doctor, however, kindly chalked it up to the four bouts of horrible stomach flu the bunny endured in the late winter. Further good news- her chronic ear infection is cleared up, so no ear tubes for the bunny! Her height is holding steady at the 50th percentile, and her melon head is still riding high in the 95th percentile. My mom is quick to assume that is both cause- and effect-related to how smart her granddaughter is, ignoring the fact that her granddaughter’s father and mother both have big giant (though not particularly smart) heads of their own.

The nurse also ran through a list of things Naomi should be able to do, and I was a little flattered at the way she breezed through it- I took this to mean she was sure Naomi was doing fine. Can she stack blocks? Does she have at least 20 words? She asked whether Naomi can stand up and sit down when we tell her to, and we both looked at each other and wondered, can she do that? Because we haven’t really ever told her to stand up or sit down, that we could remember.

Anyway, here are the milestones of the past few months that the nurse didn’t ask us about. Some are charming. Some are not as charming.

• Naomi likes to put imaginary sunscreen on us. When we are cooking (me), playing the piano (the maestro), sitting around, whatever, she comes up and starts rubbing the stuff onto our legs.
• Naomi can count to…two. Which in a way is not much better than not being able to count at all, and in a way is kind of a huge difference, really. She also likes to march around the house shouting “1-2! 1-2! 1-2!” If she has two similar items in her hands, she will look at them both and say “Two cups!” Of course, she thinks five comes after two. So we have not applied for her mensa card yet.
• She knows yellow, red, blue, green, and purple, and I suspect also brown, white, and pink. Orange is a toughie, for some reason.
• If I am on the computer or Jim is playing the piano, she will take our fingers and tug us away from our chairs, saying “Daddy, all done. Mommy, all done.” Meaning, we are done doing what we were doing, and it’s time to stop it and start playing with her. Sheesh.
• Luna the dog is in constant attendance whenever Naomi eats (or does anything, pretty much), and for reasons I am not that clear on, Jim likes to loudly send her away or scold her. Every so often, we will hear a much smaller voice saying, in the same stern tone, “Loooonha, NO! No no!” Luna minds Jim about 40% of the time; she minds Naomi 0% of the time.
• Naomi has learned the second line of “Twinkle, Twinkle.” Instead of singing it, though, she recites it over and over, all mashed together, with a lot of emphasis on the last word. So it sounds like “UpabahwodsoHIGH! UpabahwodsoHIGH!”
• Occasionally, Naomi will sit down and open a book, and begin gabbling away, very earnestly, as though she were reading the book aloud. Her voice is weirdly monotone and none of the stuff that comes out of her is recognizable as words. It only lasts for twenty seconds or so, but it is pretty engrossing.
• After a trip to the zoo, where we saw an armadillo in the nocturnal exhibit, Naomi fell in love with the word. Armadillo! Armadillo!
• In addition to endlessly pretending to feed us, her animals, and herself, Naomi now pretends that she or her animals have owies that require the application of imaginary ice. This gives you some idea of what goes on in her hardscrabble daycare world…
• Sometimes when we put Naomi to bed, she says, “Bye, Honey!” Hee.

Whistle while you work...

In honor of Labor Day, I am going to hang on to the theme of the last post, my job. It seems I am not the only one who is taking a look at her workaday world this month. One friend has determined that her dream life of research in academia is perhaps a bit more selfish than she wants to be, and that shifting the focus to teaching is a good alternative path. Another friend is thinking of leaving her hectic, low-paying service-to-others job to get a higher paying, less hectic, service-to-paying-clients job. And I know I am not the only person who has asked him or her self this month, what job do I really want to be doing?

When I had my big job epiphany last week, it wasn’t that I had arrived at the elusive answer to that question. When people ask how my job is, I equivocate. It’s OK. You know, it’s not the most interesting thing in the world. And so forth. Last week it occurred to me that my job really has so many good things going for it, and I need to start viewing it that way. The commute is short, and I am only about 12 minutes away from the bunny’s daycare. The boss is dreamy about flexible hours and working from home when necessary (I abuse the flexible hours a bit but have been very conservative on the working from home option). The building is across the street from a swanky shopping center where I have fifteen lunch options and a nail place where I can get my eyebrows waxed and be back at my desk within twenty minutes. (Even when some other part of my face also gets waxed, thanks to the plain talking aestheticians at “Finger Paints”: “You sure you don’t want that waxed? You got a lot of hair!”) I have an office with a door, free coffee and tea, and bagels every Friday. And with the afore-mentioned buyout on its way, who knows what other kind of swag! I am challenged, somewhat, by the work, and for the most part, I have almost no job-related stress. I needed to face up to the truth: my job rocks.

So, right. That’s where I was last Monday. On Tuesday, the person handling some high profile, time sensitive documentation task was out sick, and I was randomly selected to be her understudy. And my stupid email program kept telling me I couldn’t send more email because… I had too much email already. You’re using our program a little too well! No job-related stress, did I say? Because I had heard this document needed to be finished that day, and because no one was answering my questions about whether the further changes needed to be added, I was preparing, at the end of the day, to drive the twelve short minutes to the daycare, bring the bunny back to my office, buy her some animal crackers from the vending machine, and get back at it. (She has visited the office before, and thoroughly enjoys playing with my plastic plate and jar of peanut butter.) That scenario was averted, but the stress level continued through the end of the day Wednesday. More lively than usual? You bet. But threatening to my new outlook.

Also threatening to my job love was a bizarre bathroom encounter that occurred right in the middle of the stress patch. As I was walking into the Ladies’, someone was walking out of the Gents’. I said hi to the person, walked into the bathroom, and was suddenly aware that someone had walked in behind me. I turned around, and it was…the guy who had just walked out of the men’s restroom. Wha wha wha? Here’s where the story gets really embarrassing, because of what my brain offered to my mouth to say: “So, you’re just going to walk into the girls’ bathroom?” What? GIRLS’ bathroom? Anyway, the guy stopped, and said, “Must have eye trouble.” He then took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes, to really drive the point home that something was wrong with them, rather than just getting the hell out of the bathroom. The GIRLS’ bathroom. He repeated his line about eye trouble, but by this point I had walked back to the door and opened it, and gestured him out. He put his glasses back on. I think he said he was sorry on the way out, and I think I said something like, it’s alright, goodbye now.

But, ugh! It was not alright! I have walked into the men’s room on more than one occasion, usually at a bar or restaurant after I had a few, and two steps in I see the urinal, have the split second moment of realization, gasp, and flee. Not so this man, who seemed confused as to whether he was in the Ladies’ (Girls’) or at the optometrist. Plus? He had just gone to the bathroom, in his rightful place, with the urinals and all. He was done! So what was up next for him? Did he think they had moved his desk into the ladies’ room? Was he looking for the free coffee?
So yeah, happy Labor Day, fellow workers of the world. I’ll be celebrating my day off by using my luxurious in-home bathroom without the fear of anyone walking in on me. OK, anyone over the age of two.

The Corporate Life

Last week I learned that the company I have worked for since March (Company A) will be purchased in the coming months by gigantic Company B. Today, in addition to providing us with some really nice bagels and fruit for breakfast, Company B bussed us to the swanky Bellevue Westin for a little rah-rah and some free lunch. And a benefits discussion. The light fixtures in the Westin’s grand ballroom are at once amusing and extremely distracting- they are basically large circles of glass globs suspended on wires, like luminous water balloons dangling from the ceiling. For the first part of the day, we sat at long tables draped with black cloths, with notepads, pens, and water at each seat, and every so often a cosmo glass full of tiny, delicious foil-wrapped fruit candies. Which I totally meant to pour some of into my purse before we left, and forgot. Damn!

Of course, we opened with a video, showing headline after headline (after headline) of the acquisition, backed by rousing rock-n-roll. Newspapers and websites all around the world are covering this acquisition! And Company B has a really on-the-ball public information department! Then the video switched to scenes that I assumed were meant to represent the many industries that use our products, which included astronauts, oil wells, and people scurrying around the sidewalk, maybe in the financial district? Then, more astronauts.

When the CEO of Company A addressed us on the phone, his slides flashing on the big screen offered a perfect opportunity to play “a picture is worth a thousand words,” wherein you attempt to identify the real message of the slide by studying the seemingly random photo that always seems to go along with the bullets. “What drove the decision?” asks the slide. And the picture answers, “A view of the blue sky from within a small grove of tall trees.” “We wanted to be a billion dollar business,” says the slide. “I wanted to be a shiny, mirrored-glass skyscraper, seen from below at a sharp angle,” says the picture. “What does this mean for the company?” asks the slide. “Why, it means a beautiful suspension bridge, dramatically lit, in the rosy dusk,” says the picture. Or dawn. Whichever. “What does this mean for you?” asks the slide. “It’s a two-lane highway, stretching toward the horizon,” says the picture. The “Opportunities at Company B” slide declares, in the photo, that I could join the cast of yet another L&O spin off. And “Our Rewards” are that we get to sit around a glass table and smile for a camera that is directly over our heads. Cheese!

The free lunch was, I must say, delectable. They had some kind of marinated grilled veggie antipasto that could have been improved only if the people ahead of me in the buffet line hadn’t taken all the eggplant slices before I got up there. I am still a little jittery from my flourless chocolate something or other and cup of decaf. I confess a weakness for sitting in giant hotel ballrooms and eating some tasty trifle accompanied by coffee that has been carefully poured into my tiny hotel coffee cup by a uniformed banquet server. Dessert just tastes a little sweeter under these conditions.

After lunch was the benefits discussion, led by an HR manager from Company B, who was in general quite likable except for his unfortunate over-use of the phrase “at this point in time.” I had the guy next to me ask whether Company B covers maternity leave as short term disability (Company A does not). He said Company B gives you 100% pay for six weeks if you have a baby. Sweet! Not that this information is any more relevant to me (at this point in time) than it was to my seat neighbor, though he did get a laugh by asking the question.

Weirdly, none of the seven hundred questions we lobbed at the boogie woogie bugle boy concerned stock options. Back in the day, tech people considered stock options to be part of their entitlement in life. Free coffee! Subsidized soda machines! Stock options and lots of them. Now, there seems to be a don’t ask, don’t tell attitude emerging about stock options. Company A gave me exactly zero options when I started here (but I was loathe to say anything as they came miraculously close to matching my previous salary). What will you do for me, Company B? Make me love you. I’m just saying. Oh, and thanks for the lunch.

Once Bitten...

When I got home from work on Monday, Naomi and her dad were sitting on the front steps. Naomi always gets the cutest, biggest smile on her face when she sees me after a long time apart- it has evolved a bit from when I used to pick her up at daycare and she would signify her recognition (and happiness?) with a gaping, wide open mouth. I can only guess that I made a similar face at her? Like an open mouth of wonder and surprise? Something? Anyway, now she smiles a really beautiful and definitely genuine smile (which I stress only because lately she has become the biggest fake laugher ever). In contrast with this little sunbeam, though, was a particularly grim expression on Jim.

“You’ll never guess what happened today,” he said. “Look at her face.” Looked pretty cute to me. He turned her head so I could see her cheek. There was a round red welt- it looked like she had fallen asleep on something hard and painful, and this was the result. For a minute I didn’t know what I was looking at. It made me think of the old Phantom comic strip, with the guy who wore purple all the time and had a ring in the shape of a skull that left a nasty and unmistakable imprint on the jaw of whatever villain he socked. Was Naomi in a fistfight with a superhero? Or a gangster?

Jim must have sensed that I really would never guess. “It’s a bite,” he said. Augh! Apparently some kid at school was hugging and kissing Naomi (cute!), and then decided to get all Cape Fear on her (wait, not cute anymore!). She did not seem to be in the least bit traumatized by it, but for a few minutes, I really was. I didn’t feel angry at the kid, really, but I did feel upset. And weirdly helpless. When I talked to the teacher the next day, she said the biter was really into hugging the other kids, and just got carried away. Um, can I assume you’re planning to keep Toothy from getting huggy and kissy with the other kids from now on? She said they were going to try. So reassuring.

In the interest of full disclosure, about three weeks ago, Naomi bit… me. We were goofing around and laughing, and during one playful jostle, she just opened up her mouth and chomped down hard on my upper arm. It really hurt at the time, although she didn’t break the skin, and I had a little round bruise for a few days. I know that she didn’t bite me to hurt me, and I know that she wasn’t really aware of what she was doing. She was just worked up and excited, and that manifested itself as a chomp. I should probably have viewed it as the gift of a teaching moment; instead it was more of a yelling moment. But she hasn’t bitten since then. The point, I guess, is that I know kids bite. They are puppy-like in their scrappiness and in their manifestations of play and exuberance. But there is part of me that would have liked to have a similar teaching (yelling) moment with the tot who bit my kid’s face.

A postscript: in past idle surfing, I have come across some parenting bulletin boards that contain cheerful anecdotes from parents who claim to have cured their biters by… biting them back. I didn’t give this sort of crackpottery a second thought, but now that I have had a biter (and bitee), I am reminded of that advice, and all I can say is, Ewww! Is there really someone out there biting their baby? Stop that right now!