I have strange reactions to being pregnant.

I get irrationally angry when people guess that I'm pregnant.  I'm only 6 weeks along, so there is no baby bump to be seen yet.  However, a woman of a certain age is apparently not allowed to get sick.  I was in a training class for my new job, and I called in sick twice over the several week class with, I swear to God, food poisoning.  My stomach clearly does not like the salads in the cafeteria.  On the last day of class, I was told by well-meaning, perfectly lovely classmates (ironically, as I was on the phone checking my messages to see if the doctor had called with my results) that there are bets out on whether or not I'm pregnant.  I was so peeved, I have been trying to figure out ways to hide my pregnancy for as long as frickin' possible so as to delay proving all these people right.  (I have excellent precedent for this--I didn't tell work about my first pregancy until I was 5.5 months along.  And I only did it then because they wanted to send me to India.)  I get very angry at the thought of hearing them say "we knew it!!!"  For god's sake, why can't food poisoning just be food poisoning?

What a fascinating article in today's NYTimes (free registration required):

On the Trail With Daddy

The juggling acts portrayed in this article certainly make mine seem tame in comparison.  Interestingly, I find myself torn about which approach is the "best" approach.  The Edwardses are taking their kids all over the country but they see them every day, whereas the Obamas and the Dodds are leaving their kids behind and keeping them in the safe world of their routine.

So, who else heard about this study?

Preschoolers like McDonalds!

Basically, it boils down to the simple fact that kids as young as THREE YEARS OLD will choose food wrapped up in MickeyD's packaging over the exact same food without the package almost every time.

This is a working mom's lament.

On July 4th, we took our DD down to the National Mall for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (NOT the fireworks--been there, done that, never again.)  In the Northern Ireland section, they had a woman teaching the audience an Irish reel.  Fairly simple dance:  two steps forward, then back, then switch and then go around the circle.  DD was MESMERIZED.  She walked right up to the dance floor to watch, and then she started doing the dance!  She took a few steps forward, then a few back, and then did it again. When the lesson was over, she grabbed my hand and ran on the dance floor to dance some more.  Cutest thing, ever!

Clearly, my 2 year old needs dance classes.  Right?

For the first two years of my daughter's life, I was amazingly confident that I had that "balance thing" figured out.  I was working full time, but didn't seem to be plagued by the guilt and amazing stress my other working mom friends had.  When I thought about it, I could identify four factors that enabled me to pull this off: 1) I had a job that I had been in for a while, one that was flexible enough and low stress; 2) I had a husband who did 50%, if not more, of baby care duties; 3) we had a day care that we loved and trusted, and my daughter was very happy there; and finally 4) we have a daughter with a superhuman immune system that got her through her first winter in day care with only one serious illness and her second with none.  (I'm not lying.  I wouldn't have believed it either.)

All these factors not only allowed me to work full time, but to continue volunteering with my local theatre troupe and my local political party.  And then it all fell apart, like a table losing its four legs one by one.