Today got off to a fun start. This was my morning to sleep in, but Dan woke me up at 7:30 by putting the baby in bed with me and saying, "He just kicked me in the balls. You need to deal with him now." Hmm.
The past few days have really been one thing after another, mostly not in a good way. Have I ever told you that the guy I work closely with is a total dumb-dumb? Well, he's a doll, but he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you know what I mean. I predicted that a lot of last minute stuff for Sexual Assault Awareness Week (SAAW) would fall on my head at the last minute, and I was right. Dummy Doll sends me a draft of an evaluation form that he created to pass out after each program next week, and the shit is TOTALLY not useable. It's so bad that it's embarrassing. Of course, he had sent it around earlier asking for feedback, but I had been busy with other stuff and hadn't looked at it, so perhaps it's my fault for trusting him with this. Nope. I had to redo it. Evaluation forms aren't hard to do, but they do take some thought and a little time to do well-- you often have to come back to them a couple times to make sure things are formatted correctly and that the questions make sense. Annoying.
The speaker who's kicking off Take Back the Night is awesome. She's an amazing woman and an amazing speaker, but I really don't like what she has to say about rape and sexual assault. As a survivor, she has gained a lot of strength through women's self defense programs, and I COMPLETELY respect her experience and process as a survivor, but she tends to hammer home a message of, "You can and should be prepared." People have many different reactions to this message, and I see its validity, but it's not a good message for the students I work with.
Students at MIT are incredibly hard on themselves, especially the women, and they're even harder on each other at times. They're also really concrete thinkers (and are developmentally like early adolescents in many ways) and have trouble with abstract stuff and always need to know what they can and should DO; consequently, there's a great deal of blame and finger-pointing that can go on among women students. This event is supposed to be about raising voices and honoring survivors in a safe, supportive environment, and the last thing I want is for anyone to feel like they should have done something differently and THAT'S why they were assaulted.
So, needless to say, I didn't want this person to be our speaker because I anticipated all of these issues, but they picked the speaker at a meeting I couldn't go to (gee, because I don't work Fridays) and that was that. Of course, if someone gets upset, my ass will be on the line.
There's more daycare drama brewing, but I'll save that update for after I meet with the center director and the new teacher on Tuesday morning. Yup, you read that right. Watch out, bitches-- Mama Bear is back, and boy is she PISSED.
Finally, on a good note, I went to this great workshop yesterday given by Larry Cohen. He wrote a book called Playful Parenting and has great ideas about solving problems and challenges through play. The guy's also really creative and funny, and I got a lot of ideas from his presentation about connecting with my child and addressing challenges (yeah, EATING) during play time. I'll keep you guys posted. He also validated a lot of my instincts around managing tantrums and responding to difficult behavior, so that was nice. It always feels good when a so-called expert tells you that you're barking up the right tree.
One of the best parts about the workshop was that I finally got to meet the mom and baby to whom I donated milk last summer. When I was giving them my milk, the baby's dad would come and pick it up, so I never got a chance to meet mom or baby! I recognized the dad right away, and he called me over to meet his wife and baby. The baby (his name's Oscar, Oz for short) is 7 months old now and a TOTAL chunker, thanks to his amazing mom who pumped after each nursing to boost her supply AND 10 milk donors. He seems like one chubby, happy little dude.
That's it for now. Let's see how insane week goes. Oh, and check it out: http://elephant.mit.edu
1 comment:
Glad to hear that this week is going okay and everything is falling into place. When you get a spare second (yeah right!) update us on the daycare drama. I want to hear how the mama bear claws came out!
BTW, that is so cool that you got to meet the baby who got your donated milk! How fun! It must feel wonderful to know that you helped him (and his worried parents) get through those rough first few weeks. Awesome!
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