a honeybee in a hornet's nest

Today I have a one-year-old! A year ago today, at 12:12am, I pushed my sweet boy out into the world. We're having a low-key family celebration this evening, since poor Zekey has no friends here in Charlotte.

So here's what else is going on... We still hate it here, and are seriously considering moving back to Riverdale. Is that crazy? Sometimes I think it is-- we just spent an ungodly amount of money to move here, and would have to spend an ungodly amount to move back. I wasn't truly happy in Riverdale, and it's not where I see us spending the rest of our lives, not where I see my kids growing up. But Charlotte certainly isn't, either. And the main reasons for our move to Charlotte-- family support, terrorism fears, and money-- just aren't panning out. My family is anything but supportive and helpful. Actually, my sister and brother-in-law did babysit once when Adrian was away, so I could get a little time alone, and then they took the kids and me out to dinner. They offered out of the blue, and it was so nice of them. But generally I can't count on them for support and help, because they are expecting their first baby in March and if anything I should be the one helping my sister out.

My parents, meanwhile, have only babysat twice in the four months that we've been here, and both times were because we asked-- no offers on their part. When Adrian was away on business and I was alone with the kids, my parents didn't offer to babysit or help out in any way, but my mom did manage to insult my housekeeping when she came over. Today they are "stopping by" for Zeke's birthday but they can't stay long because thay have two New Year's parties to go to. Y'know, I understand that I can't expect people to give up their New Year's plans each year for Zeke's birthday, but one would think that for his first birthday, when we're celebrating in the early evening, his grandparents would make him a priority. Am I wrong to be hurt and angry about this? I don't think so. Meanwhile, my dad has not spoken to my sister and brother-in-law (and vice versa) since an argument they had in October, so yesterday I had to deal with questions from each about whether and when the other would be attending today's festivities, because God forbid they stand in the same room together and act civil for Zeke's birthday. It's fucking ridiculous; I did not move here to deal with all this petty shit. Bitter? Me? Why do you ask?

Onto the next reason-- terrorism fears. I've traded the fear of Adrian dying in a terrorist attack for the fear of all of us dying in a car wreck, and I have a feeling the latter is much more likely.

And money? Things are more precarious for us now than they've been in a long time. There seem to be no jobs for Adrian here in Charlotte, while NY jobs are plentiful. Besides all the ads, there's been talk of his old job hiring him back again.

So yeah, definite possibility.

I've been doing a lot of heavy thinking about my life lately; I guess it's the New Year. I've been realizing that the cool satisfying blissful life I want isn't going to just magically happen to me, and I need to stop waiting around for it. I have to make it happen. I'll be turning 34 in March, and I'm tired of being unhappy. I'm beginning to feel my mortality. I need to make changes. I'm going to start exercising and taking better care of myself. I'm going to start facing my fears. My social anxiety is a major thing that holds me back in life, and I'm fucking sick of it. Therapy didn't help me much in that area. It helped me realize things about myself, it was a good thing overall, but in terms of social anxiety I don't think it did much good. Zoloft helps, but of course it's no magic bullet. I think what's going to help the most is just me working on it. I'm not saying one can just "snap out of" things like depression and anxiety or that they are not real illnesses or anything like that. It's not that I'm just deciding not to be anxious anymore and therefore my problems will go away. But I'm going to actively do stuff to either reduce my anxiety or work around it and in spite of it, because I can't live this way anymore. I know it will take a long time, and I'll have to start with baby steps, and I'll probably backtrack here and there, but I just have to do this.

I am also working on making time to do things I really want to do, and taking steps to realize goals I have and things I always say I want to do "one of these days," instead of just dreaming about them.

One result of this is that I need to stop blogging, perhaps temporarily, perhaps forever. I'm thinking the latter, but every time I've said that in the past I've always started up again. It's an addiction. But creating a fulfilling life for myself means breaking free of addictions (except coffee! Cannot live without my coffee!), so hopefully this is truly my last ever blog entry.

Happy New Year, all. I wish you peace and happiness and love and kindness and joy and all good things.

Farewell.

Firstly, comments have been disabled, and I don't feel like spending money to upgrade from a free account, so for the time being they will remain disabled. If you'd like to comment on anything, you can email me.

I do want to say, though, re: the last entry and Robin's comment-- it's not that there are no anti-choice, child-hitting Republicans in NYC (or the north in general), because obviously there are. What struck me was that saying that I wouldn't get along with such people is considered narrow-minded here. In NY, I wouldn't even have to say something like that, because I hardly ever met anyone like that. Among the parents I knew in my old neighborhood, there was one set that hit their kids and liked Bush. As time went on, I didn't pursue much contact with them. Every now and then, there would be someone in the playground hitting their kid, and the rest of the parents were obviously appalled. I'm sure there were anti-choice people or people who were voting for Bush, but I didn't know any. Republicans are overwhelmingly the minority in NYC, and even my section of the Bronx, which contains large sections of blue-collar folks, Irish Catholics, and Orthodox Jews, swings very Democrat. Actually, Riverdale seemed pretty conservative to me until I moved to Charlotte. Conservative in NYC is very different from conservative elsewhere.

Anyway.... I was going to say that after a long time looking and feeling like a soccer mom (but one without much money), I was finally getting my mojo back. I got a root canal that I'd been putting off forever. I got a skirt hemmed, and I got the zipper on a really cool pair of plaid pants fixed. For the first time in about five or six years, I bought a pair of jeans. I have a fat, flabby stomach and skinny legs, and normally jeans look awful on me. But I finally found a pair that fits right-- stretch denim, at my actual waist, short length. They look fabulous. I also found two really soft long sleeve tees at my temple's rummage sale-- for fifty cents each!-- and unpacked two shirts I'd forgotten about. Basically, I doubled my wardrobe. My hair has finally grown into a bob, and it was looking fab for a while. I won a cool pair of cat-eye frames on eBay. I've been walking a lot more, which feels great. And the weather here, while completely bizarre to me, has been gorgeous. Sunny and dry and in the 50s-60s. I was all psyched up for the holidays.

But now... my hair needs a cut, the glasses arrived and they don't fit right, and I have a rash on my arms which I think is due to a yeast overgrowth from the antibiotics I had to take for the root canal. Chanukah passed so quickly, and I didn't have everything ready, and I never got to make latkes, and Adrian was working in NY for half of it. We don't have a Christmas tree or decorations yet, and I can''t shop for them because Adrian is in NY again and I don't drive. I still don't have all the presents ready and it's already the 20th-- there's no way I'll get everything wrapped, packed, and mailed on time.

The thing that's been the hardest, though, is my relationship with Llani. We've been having major discipline problems, and I've been getting frustrated and angry and doing a lot of yelling. I read all these great positive discipline books and want desperately to discipline her respectfully, compassionately, without punishment... but when the shit hits the fan I revert to screaming and threatening and blaming. It's awful. I feel like a monster, and all it does is exacerbate the problems. And it gets to the point where I don't even want to spend time with her, because I know everything is going to be a battle. Giving her breakfast will involove tons of whining, getting her dressed will take 90 minutes and involve whining, yelling (on both our parts), tears, and wailing. It's so frustrating. I think if I could internalize the positive discipline philosophies and work on preventing problems before they happen, things would be better, but I just feel so defeated and behind the curve that I can't get a handle on it. I'm constantly taking one step forward and three steps back.

The major contributing factor to her behavior is that she hasn't really played with other kids (besides Zekey) in FOUR MONTHS. She had about three playdates with neighbor kids when we lived with my mom, and that's it. She's seen other kids at the playground and at temple but she doesn't like to jump right in and play with kids she doesn't know. We haven't met anyone here yet, and I keep looking for activites to do with her but so far that hasn't panned out. We're starting Music Together next month, and hopefully we'll make friends there, but it would be nice to meet people before then. I wish we could make a good friend or two in the neighborhood, someone we could see regularly, a mama I'd get along with and a kid she'd get along with.

In the past year or two, the Bugaboo has become the new MacLaren. My prediction? This will soon become the new Bugaboo.

Me? I just bought one of these, used, in a thrift store. I have a Kozy and an umbrella stroller for the bus, but the Sit-N-Stand will be my "walking around the neighborhood" stroller, because the technique of having Llani stand on the footrest and loom over Zekey when she gets tired is losing its appeal.

To be filed under "Only in the South": someone from a local homeschooling list just sent me this email:

Wow.  I can only imagine that it is difficult to meet friends with a narrow-minded perspective such as yours.  Best of luck.

This was because I said that I wouldn't get along with someone who hits their kids or is pro-Bush or anti-choice. If that's considered "narrow-minded" here, this place is scarier than I thought.

Happy Buy Nothing Day! It is a gorgeous day in Charlotte-- finally feeling like fall. Chilly and sunny and crisp. The kids and I are going to walk around and collect fall leaves. Then Llani and I will sort them, talk about their attributes, and make a little leaf book by gluing a leaf onto each page and writing one sentence below it, such as "This leaf is small and red." Llani will dictate and I will write. I know we'll both enjoy this. Yay homeschooling!

Zekey has been walking since Sunday night (well, not nonstop, but you know what I mean). He takes those adorable toddler Frankenstein steps and squeals and laughs with pride. He also seems to be picking up some sign language, and has learned how to throw a ball and to pick it up from the floor when someone rolls it to him. He's becoming a toddler, which is quite startling to me as I still feel like he's a tiny baby. I can't believe he'll be a year old in about a month. Heck, I can't believe Llani will be four in about two months. Oh my Maude, I've been a mom for four years! How did that happen? I still feel like a new mom.

Speaking of new moms, my sister is five months pregnant and getting a nice big belly. They found out they're having a boy, and have decided on the name Ethan. I wasn't too keen on the name at first, but I'm really warming to it. I never wanted to find out the sex of the baby when I was pregnant, and if I have another child I'll probably still let it be a surprise, but I must say there's something nice about knowing the sex and having the name picked out. We refer to him by name, and Llani talks excitedly about "baby Ethan" or "cousin Ethan."

My sister has asked me to be present at the birth, and I think I will accept. What an honor.

Aaahhhhh... so nice to have my computer up and running again. Sorry this blog has been moribund lately; I have been so busy with the kids, getting settled in our new apartment, exploring the neighborhood. Add to that the fact that any computer time I've had has been on Adrian's old broken computer during the rare moments that he wasn't using it and our net connection was working, and you'll see how impossible blogging has been for me lately. Now our connection has been fixed and my computer is set up, so hopefully this site will be updated a little more often. No promises, though, because both kids are in high-needs stages right now.

Zekey, who is grabbing at the keyboard and almost climbing on me at the moment, is cutting his second two teeth right on the tail of his first two. He's such a precious little scamp, I swear. Now that I'm in a more childproofed space I can enjoy his mischief a little more rather than being frustrated and stressed 24/7. He's so much more active than Llani was at his age. Perfect example: when I sat Llani in restaurant highchairs, I never bothered buckling her in. I never needed to. With Zekey, I have to buckle him and adjust the seatbelt so it is snug enough. Even so, he manages to twist himself around and sometimes stand up. Last night he undid the seatbelt and started crawling onto the table!

He's going through so many changes right now and it's adorable. He's beginning to stand independently, and once took a couple of steps by himself. He crusises around, holding onto furniture, and loves to get into everything he can. When he hears music he will dance-- bending his knees and bouncing up and down-- and sometimes sing, sort of cooing along with the music. He's practicing different sounds, exploring his voice, and sometimes he will growl a throaty "Aaaaa!" or make sweet, high-pitched, talking kind of sounds.

Llani, meanwhile, is Ms. Verbal, expaning her vocabulary and parroting the adults around her. We have this little game where she'll see something, a tree, for instance, and say, "Look-- that tree is huge!" "Yes, it's tremendous!" I'll answer, and we'll go through a little back and forth with all the synonyms for "huge" we can think of. It's really cute hearing her declare something "igantuan" (her way of saying "gargantuan"). She's picked up a couple of Yiddish words here and there, and it's so amusing to hear words like "oy, gevalt," "tzayndies" (teeth) or "vantz" (bedbug; a term of endearment for a mischievous child) come out of the mouth of a three-year-old. She goes through little phases where she says one word or phrase a lot; I guess we all do that. Some of her latest things are "I have no idea," "Awwwww, that's so cuuute" or "that's so sweeeet," "that's so cool," and "thank God." We really have to watch our language around her-- sometimes when she spills something she'll let loose a heartfelt sigh of "shit!" or "Jesus Christ!" Yesterday she picked up some mail, thumbed through it, and said, "There's nothing here, just crap, crap, crap."

We're getting to know the neighborhood, and becoming regulars at some of the local shops and restaurants. There's a gelato place right across the street that we go to fairly often. The owners are an Italian couple in, I guess, their late forties or early fifties (I'm a terrible judge of age, though). They're very friendly and seem to be generally on the same wavelength as us; we sit and chat with them whenever we're there. Last night as we walked past and waved to the husband, my brother-in-law said, "It's like Sesame Street with Mr. Hooper or whatever, how we walk past a store and wave." "Wait a minute," I said, "are you telling me that actually knowing a shopkeeper in a local store instead of just going to Target or Walmart is so rare in your life that it seems like Sesame Street?" And he answered yes. Wow. In the world that my sister and brother inhabit, shopping at local shops and knowing the shopkeepers is so strange and quaint that it feels like a television show. That really gives me pause. In every place I've lived there have been small local shops, and I've always known the shopkeepers at least enough to say hi as I passed. It was not unusual for the hardware store guy to say, "Tell your husband that piece he was looking for will be in Tuesday," or the waitress in our local diner to remark on how big the baby was getting. If I went to the grocery store with just Zekey, the cashier would ask, "Where's your daughter? In school?" People knew who we were. I can't imagine living in a neighborhood and not having that.

So... This entry has been weeks in the making, as I've had almost no time to write. We signed the lease on an apartment in Dilworth, which is the only neighborhood in Charlotte that seems remotely tolerable for us. We can walk to shops, cafes, restaurants, and parks. Best of all, there are two natural foods stores right near our building. We're moving most of our stuff on Wednesday, but the kids and I are going to start sleeping there tonight. Adrian is leaving this afternoon on a business trip to Florida for a few days, and I really want to be able to get around without being dependent on my parents, their schedule, and their car.

Our apartment, I have to say, is beautiful, and the building, so far, seems very well kept. We want to move out of Charlotte as soon as we can, but we also want to feel at home while we are here, so we're putting a lot effort into painting and decorating and making the place really cozy. Anyway... some first impressions. I know I sound sulky and snotty. Bear with me; I'm homesick.

Things are different here.

A million little things. Some good, most bad.

Before moving here, I had never seen a Bush bumper sticker. Never. Did not know what they looked like. Now, I am surrounded by them. I used to read the polls and wonder where on earth these Bush supporters were, because I did not know a single one. The very idea of supporting Bush was ludicrous; it was just assumed that everyone was opposed to him. Now I've learned where they are-- here in Charlotte.

The other day, in two seperate places, anti-choice people lined the road, holding up signs.

I can forget about saving money on groceries by living here. When I visited Charlotte in the past, I was impressed by the cheap prices of groceries. Now, I'm finding out that's not really the case. Some things are cheaper, but a lot of things are pricier. And that's surprising, because I always figured NYC was more expensive. The store brand of pasta is 99 cents here. In NY most store brands were 85 cents, and then every other week or so a brand would go on sale-- 4 for a dollar, 5 for a dollar-- and we would stock up. I can't believe I'm paying so much for pasta. Green peppers are $1.59 each. Each! I know, I sound really nitpicky, it just irks me that prices are higher on so many little things when there's no real reason for them to be. And Harris Teeter practically has a monopoly on the supermarket industry here; there's a few other stores scattered here and there but basically a supermarket in Charlotte is a Harris Teeter. Oh, and Harris Teeter doesn't carry Goya products.

Iced tea is as common as water here. Every single restaurant has iced tea, and in the fast food places it is in these big metal kegs next to the soda fountains. People don't even call it iced tea-- "tea" automatically means iced, and if you want what I think of as "regular" tea, you have to specifically ask for hot tea. The iced tea here is always available in sweetened or unsweetened versions. Sweet tea is really sweet, unbearably so, and neither one has lemon. I have tried the tea in almost every restaurant we've gone to, in differing rations of sweet:unsweet, with various amounts of lemon, and have come to the conclusion that I'll take a Snapple over this crap any day. Yes, I am a philistine when it comes to tea. What can I say? Speaking of drinks, free refills are the norm here, which is pretty cool. Or at least it would be if I didn't drink water most of the time anyway. Oh, and speaking of water, it's always served with a lemon wedge here.

There is a style of restaurant that I'd never seen before, but it is in abundance here. It's somewhere between fast food and a regular restaurant: you get on line, order at the counter, pay, and then you get a number on a stand. You choose a table and stick your number on it. When your food is ready, a waitperson finds your number and brings your food over. Very strange. Neither good nor bad, really, but every time I go into a new restaurant I feel disoriented, trying to figure out what the protocol is.

Restaurants, by the way, are overwhelmingly child-friendly here. Thay almost always have highchairs, a children's menu, crayons, and a take-home kids' cup. One place even gives free baby food. Way cool. Of course, most of them are chains. But we've managed to find some independents, and even the chains aren't all bad. Surprisingly, casual resturants are more expensive here than in NYC.

There are so many smokers here! It's really gross. Everywhere I look people are smoking. A few weeks ago we were at a festival, sitting at a table and eating. A couple sat down at the same table, ate their food, and then the man lit up a cigarette while we were still eating! People here think nothing of smoking right near children and babies. I see parents smoking in their cars with kids in the car. Horrifying. Smoking is legal in restaurants, though a lot of restaurants (thankfully) have no-smoking policies.

When driving, people tailgate like crazy. Everytime we're on the road, there's someone riding our ass. If we have the unbridled gall to drive the speed limit on a dark and windy road, the car behind us will stick to us like glue and flash its lights. Adrian always says he's tempted to slow down even more just to piss the guy off, but then I remind him that in NC it's legal to carry concealed. Eek!

Speaking of tailgating, it apparently means something other than riding someone's ass on the road, though I haven't figured out what. Something that involves food. Stores advertise "Your Tailgate Headquarters" and "Get Your Tailgate Platters Here" all over town. One health food store has a huge banner proclaiming itself "Your Natural Tailgate Headquarters."

Could there be any more Christian radio stations?! This is the FM dial here: Jesus, NPR, Jesus, Jesus, country, Jesus, Top 40, country, Jesus, country, classic rock, country, Jesus, Jesus, R&B, Jesus, country, country, Jesus, country, alternative, Christian country. Yes, I now live in the Bible Belt. Christianity encroaches upon the public sphere to an extent that I have never in my life experienced. The local paper carries a daily advice column by Billy Graham, and the "Living" section focuses on religion (mostly Protestant Christianity) on (I think) a weekly basis. Growing up Jewish in NYC, I really did not feel like a minority. Now I definitely do.

I swear to Maude I can't understand what people are saying half the time. I'm not being a snob, I'm not being facetious, I truly cannot understand the accent. Whenever I talk to someone from around here, I spend half the conversation saying "what?" and the other half smiling and nodding.

Someone told us the other day that the key to being happy in Charlotte is giving it time and embracing the different lifestyle. I've heard this again and again: people saying they hated Charlotte for the first year they lived here, but now they love it. Not a real enthusiastic endorsement, if you ask me. But we have no choice, so we'll just keep on keepin' on and hope we end up happy.