Late evening November 13; early morning November 14; later in the day November 14, 2001.
Late Evening
I am going to take a break from grading to jot a note or two. I have just a few papers left to grade and would leave them for my morning office hours except that I can feel that, at 11 p.m., I am still in the grip of my noontime caffeine binge and will not sleep for a long time anyway. But I'm tired of writing "source?" and "is this in your own words?" and "really? every time?" (this in response to "every time a student bullies another student it ends in a murderous bloodbath.") and "where are your citations?" and "please alphabetize your Works Cited page." I am this close to adding, "you idiot" to margin notes--as in, "where are your citations, you idiot?"--or writing, "the problem with this paper is that you are a moron" in my end comments; thus, it is time to take a little break.
I have discovered the flaw in my system of waiting until the last minute to grade. Well, there are always flaws, and they have always been obvious, but there's a new one: it just doesn't work when there's a baby around, because your time is not your own. For instance, I planned to start grading around 7:30. And I did. But I soon had to stop to give Eric a topper, and then to rock him, because he was very fussy. He did not go to sleep, although he was obviously sleepy, yawning often and dramatically. We figured he would go right to sleep when David took him up to bed, since that's what he always does. But he didn't, and shortly after they had gone up, Scott interrupted my grading to report that he and David thought Eric might have a little fever, and did I know where the thermometer was, and did I know what a baby's normal temperature is.
I knew where the thermometer was, and I looked up the normal temperature in a book, and then I spent a fruitless fifteen minutes, with David, trying to take Eric's temperature under the arm, which he would not hold still for. We finally stripped him and took his temperature rectally, which interestingly enough, he found much less troublesome. His temperature was normal, and he went right to sleep after that.
Our diagnosis: Infantile Roasting Syndrome precipitated by Parental Feebleness. In other words, he was overheated because we had dressed him too warmly, and being stripped to have his temp taken gave him a chance to cool down and go to sleep.
Worst night of fussing ever. Most difficulty ever in diagnosing and correcting cause of fussiness. But David still got to bed by 10:00. Not too bad.
I have this theory that mothering Eric has left me less prepared for another baby, rather than more. You see, I expected months of severe sleep deprivation. I expected to walk the floor with my crying baby night after night. I expected fussiness and colic, poopy diapers from here to Timbuktu, complete restriction of social activities. I expected to often say, "Why is he crying?" and spend hours trying to find the answer. Instead, I got Eric, the Steady and Phlegmatic, and have mostly marveled that the whole thing has been easier than I expected.
Which means I now expect it to be easy. I may say, "Oh, of course the next baby will be more difficult," but it's hard to believe in difficult babies when one's experience is so different. Hence, the next baby is bound to be a terrible shock when it cries for no apparent reason, refuses to sleep at night, gets too distraught from crying when hungry to take a bottle or nurse, makes eating in restaurants impossible, suffers constantly from diaper rash, and who knows what all--probably things I can't even imagine.
My point was going to be that, as much as procrastination seems to be about a lack of control (at least, about a lack of self-control and self-discipline to make good choices about using time), successful procrastination depends on being in control of one's time: I will grade the papers from 8 to 10 p.m., for instance. But with a baby, one is never in control of one's time. Older people, you can blow off, but the baby, you just can't. If he comes down with Infantile Roasting Syndrome at 9 p.m., you have no choice but to deal with the problem at 9 p.m. Of course the procrastinator always faces the risk of some unexpected problem making it impossible to finish: a computer crash, a flat tire, an alarm clock that doesn't go off, a gross misjudgment about the amount of time needed to accomplish the task. But the risk multiplies, oh, a thousand-fold when a baby is involved.
You may ask, "Where was David? Why could he not care for Eric while you graded? Why did you have to give the topper, for instance?" David was busy making formula so that I would have something to feed Eric when he gets hungry in the morning; then he did all his chores; then he changed Eric for bed. All with bronchitis. So no bitching about David.
"Lover gets bronchitis" is another unexpected thing that can mess with the procrastinator's illusion of perfect control.
Hey, the caffeine seems to have worn off. I should go to bed and take up grading again in the morning when I will be, hopefully, over my little fit of pique at how little my students manage to learn no matter how much I try to teach them. Now I just have to guess how much time I need in the morning for the remaining papers, hope Eric doesn't need a bottle two minutes before my alarm is supposed to go off (unless Eric needing a bottle saves me from sleeping through my alarm, in which case it is the lesser of evils), hope Bronchitis Boy is recovered enough from the powerful nighttime cold medicine he has taken to care for Eric in the early morning...of course, having mentioned those things, I have now inoculated myself against them. But something else is sure to go wrong.
6 a.m.
Up grading, more cheerful toward my students after six hours sleep...until I got to the paper about Osomble vin Laben and the Talabon. I said, "You have no credibility at all with your readers if you can't spell the topic of your paper correctly." I left off, "you stupid idiotic moron," but did chastise him for sloppiness.
5 p.m.
Other grading highlight: the student who mis-quoted the constitution. I enjoyed, in an evil and vicious way, pointing out that Article 1, Section 6 does not address the right to bear arms. It states that the legislature will be paid, still a controversial provision, I admit.
I am so mean to my students when they aren't in front of me. But face-to-face I am a sympathetic pussycat. I have excused absences for a guy whose (probably imaginary) stepfather has a (probably fake) brain tumor, and today I let two girls cry their way into not being dropped for non-attendance ("I'm so sorry, Mrs. Penn, I thought I had one absence left and I felt so sick on Monday and I know I should have checked with you about how many absences I had and I really need to get credit in this class to be able to stay on the basketball team... [pause. calculated glance from behind handkerchief. Bites lower lip in valiant effort to control emotions...or to stimulate more real-looking tears] ... I know it's really my fault but if you could possibly let me...you will?...I can?... Oh, you're terrific, you didn't have to do that, I'm so grateful, and by the way I'm going to be a little late to class today because I have to go fix my makeup.").
Here's a weak motivation for getting a Ph.D.: so they can call me Dr. Penn and I can stop fighting in vain to get them to call me Ms. Penn instead of Miss Penn or Mrs. Penn.
When I was 18, I would have been pissed as hell if anyone called me a "girl." "I am a woman," I would have said. But you know what? I'm 36 now, and they are girls. So there.
My god, I'm twice as old as some of my students.... Holy cow.
They don't really have handkerchiefs. That was a bit of poetic license. In case you wondered.
Eric got a letter from the chiropractor today. It must be a form letter they send to all the kids: "I was so excited to meet you! Thank you for letting me take care of your spine. My job is to find the little bone that is out of place and gently push it back into place. This will help you stay healthy and will help your spine grow right."
The chiropractor is so thrilled that we have put Eric's well-being into her capable (if perky) hands that she is going to keep adjusting him for free once he's used up his twelve insurance-covered visits. And she's giving me and David a pretty good family rate: a flat monthly fee for all the adjustments we need. At our current adjustment rate of three times a week, it comes to about six bucks per adjustment. She just loves it that the whole family comes in together to get adjusted. She loves it that we've made a "commitment to wellness from the inside out." Perky, perky, perky.
I am a total convert to chiropractic care. Not only is my back practically pain-free now, but I feel more loose, flexible, and comfortable from my neck to my butt than I have in years.
Did I mention that I am getting muscles in my upper arms from lifting Eric all the time? A few weeks ago, I was in agony from it, and could barely lift my arms above my head. But my muscles seem to have caught up, and especially in my left arm, you can feel my bulging biceps. I guess lifting 18 pounds a hundred times a day will do that to you.
Adrianne donned her pillbox hat and white gloves to join me at my virtual coffee klatsch and express her astonishment that I still fry my bacon. "I bake mine," she said. "It comes out so crispy and you don't have to turn it. I use baking paper and cleanup is a snap!" 400 degree oven, for those who care.
I finally have a therapy appointment tomorrow. Which probably explains why I have been feeling so much better the last few days.
Posted by Su Penn at December 23, 2003 01:26 PM | TrackBack