With no fanfare or special envelope my Official Official Ten Year Green Card arrived in the mail on the weekend. 3 years and 351 days after we got married. Good on you Immigration, no one can accuse you of working slowly. Except the millions of people stuck in your mire. I am very happy I do not have to deal with them or pay their insane fees for ten more years. It's like graduating from Immigration College or something. (The picture is horrific - ten years of a horrific picture!)

So now that I've graduated Department of H0meland Security U., I have matriculated to a Masters in The Hell of Obtaining Childcare. What a holy hot mess. I've been looking for nigh on 5 months now, just signed a contract to start work in T minu 28 days and am not 100% sure there will be somewhere to stash the baby while I work to pay to stash the baby. I am on 5 waiting lists. I have paid $200 in "non-refundable" deposits to hold waiting list spots. I have called every SAHM in my zip code to see if they would like a little running around money for looking after my should-be SAHC. I have fully utilised the paid for services of the local child care agency and I still can't get one person to agree totally and completely that yes, they have a spot for her. I admit, I am somewhat picky. I don't want it to be ugly and lightless and depressing. I hate it when they have a name that includes the adjective "Precious", double extra hex points for those that mention "Angels". I'm dubious and afraid of those that mention prayer but what the hell, I went to a super Christian after-school babysitter for 6 critical years of my life and though it did cause me to go to church solo and not swear or kiss boys until I was 14, I got over it and became the perfectly lovely atheist you see before you.

In desperation at the slow response time and extremely high fees of the daycare centers (it will be interesting to observe how my motivation to work is hampered by the fact that I'll be clearing a few measly hundred dollars, if that, by doing said work and paying for daycare which just makes me want to sigh heavily for days and days) I wrote a Craigslist ad to see if there was a hidden gem of a home daycare out there. I was insanely specific in the ad, because if you have a chance to lay our your dream situation, you may as well. I asked for a place within a very specific geographical location so that I could walk and bike her to daycare. And yet - and yet - desperate SAHM's flooded my in-box with "I live about 45 minutes by car away from you but..." - thus letting me know they did not read my ad at all. I was also offered the chance to get in on several nanny shares, apparently a pretty common solution around here. Nannys - jesus, they make me so nervous. First, I do not want to be someone's direct employer, responsible for the fact that they can eat. That feels scarier than being a Mom. I do not feel comfortable asking for others to do things for me or "directing" them. I also do not want to be at the whim of a person, honestly. A Nanny is a single human being, with families and problems and health crises and dreams of their own and throwing all of my childcare eggs in one persons basket seems awfully scary. I'm in a few talks with other couples but it's all uncharted territory and frankly, I am feeling more lost every day. And I have been actively searching for FIVE months. Also, it is crappy to have to give up your kid just when she is getting so interesting.

In other child related news,on the weekend we attended a Parents Potluck for the Progressive People Political Group I belong to. Food was earnest, people were a mixed bag. I don't have much in common with the Amazonian Glamour Moms who live in the brick lofts downtown but I'm not a totally schlubby suburban Mom in sweatpants either. And with all these babies in the mix, the varieties of Parenting Philosophies was on full display to silently judge or wonder about. I definitely was the only one who had a bottle for her baby and didn't just whip out her boob - though I am a woman and fully totally believe in a womans right to breastfeed wherever the hell she wants, it is still disconcerting to be in mid-conversation and try desperately to keep your eyes on the face and not down where the action is - and I could feel a little Noticing of my Bottle Feeding baby and I couldn't just blurt out that I mostly feed her organic rice cereal and yogurt and avocado and bananas and goddamn, it was a failure to thrive issue and did they notice it was a glass bottle, not one of those BPA bottles? Also, sleep habits were mentioned and we were the only ones who don't/didn't co-sleep. I bear you no ill-will co-sleepers but in our family, we're all MUCH happier having our own little sleeping areas. You can't convince me otherwise. I won't try and convince you. It was also my first experience with "competitive child syndrome" and though I found myself saying "wow, 8 months old and he already walks, how wonderful" and "wow, for a 2 month old she is very advanced", I probed myself for any twinges of envy or fear that my kid doesn't measure up, and to my relief, I honestly didn't find any. My kid is Textbook, hitting all of her milestones right on cue and I'm happy with that. Right now she is learning to squeal but hasn't figured out that you have to exhale to make it effective and so it's this hilarious inhaling backward shriek like an organ with a broken bellow. Right now she is also sitting in her Bumbo chewing on the plastic bag my newspaper is delivered in. And I wonder why she's not a genius baby...

On other topics, we just finished watching "The Comeback: Season One" with Lisa Kudrow and it was surprisingly humane and funny and it didn't do that HBO thing where just because you CAN say Fuck every second word and show graphic sex scenes, you DO. Also, I am convinced that if I had a Mickey of my own - oh how I loved Mickey - my life would be so so much better. I am now taking applications for a Nanny and a Mickey.