I wish haircutters and dentists were 24 hour - I'd so be getting my teeth worked on and my haircut right now. 3-5 am has become my new "me" time, where I do email and other school related and life related things that have otherwise escaped me. It's also a good time to do the laundry as Simone has developed this intense fear/hatred of the washing machine and dryer. It's like flipping a switch - turn them on, hear her cry. I've tried holding her near them, on them, explaining them - no dice. She also does not enjoy vacuums and blenders. This restricts life more than you may think. I hope her fear of small motors is not just the tip of the iceberg. In all other ways she seems really adaptable and relaxed - or at least that is what I tell myself when I drop her off in the morning at daycare, chanting "she is fine". I've become such a cliche, I can hardly stand it:

Working mother guilt - check!
Life/work balance issues - check!
Daycare worries - check!
No time - check!
No "us" time or romantic time or time, period with husband - check!
Career frustration with how mothers are supposed to fit into the new workplace - check!

I could be an issue of Ladies Home Journal, complete with "Can This Marriage Be Saved" - our marriage is not in trouble, I hasten to add. We are actually an amazingly functional team, literally high-fiving each other as we complete daily routines. AH is SO GOOD about picking up my slack of late on the homefront - and I'm saying that as equal partners, not "he's good for a man". But last night I called him to let him know I was walking home from the bus - a 30 minute walk - and we ended up talking the entire walk on my cell phone because it was the most uninterrupted time we had had in ages to just talk. We even cooked together as I had to talk him through cooking a pot of rice - seriously, I asked? You don't know how? That's crazy. I had no idea I was the primary rice cooker in this family. Tip: Basmati rice is a nice smell to come home to.

It's not all sweat and labor preventing our couple talking - Mad Men finally came in at my work library and I snagged the first circulating copies. Of course it is pretty as all get out, but I honestly had little to no expectations about their portrayal of women and the issues of the time. So far, so wrong - the female characters are (one disc in) front and center and interesting and complex. It is an excellent thing to watch while doing homework. Luckily, there is a lot of homework to do. I started my film archive job this week too and I'm pretty giddy with what I get to do. When I try to think of the future and jobs it's difficult - when/how do I make the transition from someone who wants to be, say, a librarian and one who is a librarian? Will Graduation really mean I'm fully fledged and official in my mind as well as on paper? It seems hard to believe. I think I need to work on my visualization, not The Secret style but Possible Selves style. We just read a book in my seminar on adult education that goes to great lengths to explain how important it is for students success to use "possible selves" - eg creating and clarifying and seeing themselves as their goal, not just the goal itself - and I realized I do not do Possible Selves. I definitely have goals and try to achieve them but every time I try to REALLY picture and imagine myself as the person doing that goal and living that life, there is a literal visual barrier that flashes up like a stop sign and says "No way, not yet, not me". I didn't know this until this week - I'm not comfortable with it but I'm going to try experimenting with some visualization and proclamations to myself about what I can be. What I am. Maybe it will be useful. I am largely comfortable with this space being comments-challenged so people don't feel they need to respond to my rambling thoughts - but today, it would be nice to posit the question "Who are your Possible Selves? What do they look like?" and hear some answers.
The Certifiably Real Baby is Possibly awake...dang.