Fe 2, 2009

So...

I think an essential component of the switch from Matriarchy to
Patriarchy had to have been the loss of the barter system. Confused?
Allow me to explain my reasoning.

Let us go with the traditional mammalian model: female makes babies,
male provides for female and young. In a matriarchal society this
would be viewed as the female performing the central task, and the
male bringing her goodies in essence to bribe his way into her
acceptance of him as a part of the family unit. He's paying her to
LET him belong.

In the patriarchal view, the male is performing the central task, and
the female is raising his young and making his home all nice in the
hopes that he will continue to provide for her and the offspring. She
is bribing him, in this instance, to give her support.

(Now, the truth is that probably any society would be better off if
everyone accepted that it's important to raise the young AND it's
important to eat on a regular basis, but let's just assume that, for
whatever reason, that's not an option.)

So, let's say we're merrily rolling along through history with a
matriarchal society. Women have babies and homes, and men who provide
for them are allowed to live in these homes and bask in the glory of
familial love. Then, one day, some bright enterprising chap comes up
with the idea of money, which makes all the trading going on (my bow
for your knife, my corn for your milk) MUCH easier. Except that, over
time, instead of the value of something residing intrinsically with
that thing (a cow is a cow is a cow) it begins to reside in the coin
that gets PAID for that thing. So, the men, who labor at tasks that
make things that get sold, accumulate the only thing of value, and the
women, who perpetuate the species but don't get handed any shiny metal
bits for it, end up as second class citizens.

And of course, it's still that way. A woman who chooses to work at
home raising her family almost has to apologize for not going out and
making any money.

However, I have decided that, at least in my little corner of the
world, I am going to revert to a matriarchal society. If I choose to
make money, fine and good, but the work that I am doing has intrinsic
value all on it's own, and as far as I am concerned, Waxor is bribing
me to LET him be a part of it.

THBPT!

Elliot has developed a mighty appetite this past week - it's gone
along with him biting everything he can clamp his little teeth on. My
fingers have not appreciated it, but I'm glad he's eating more and
better foods. Today I went to Joann Fabrics to get some curtain
material for his room. I've got double curtain rods and am planning
on hanging a heavy fluffy fabric on the window side curtain, to help
insulate his room. It's just so much colder than the rest of the
house. Between that and a suggestion from Kay (double PJing him) I'm
hoping that once his teething pain goes away he'll sleep a little
better. He was sleeping great the whole time in Nicaragua, waking up
only once or twice a night (and only one of those was while I was
asleep, so I, too, was sleeping well) but then we got back here to his
cold little room and BOOM, waking up 3, 4, sometimes 5 times a night.
Sigh. I'm actually convinced that about half of his nightly wake ups
happen when he rolls over and some part of his body comes into contact
with his wall, which is FREEZING.


Y'know, art projects aren't nearly as fun when you have to keep tiny
baby fingers out of everything. Imagine tiny fingers covered in
paint... or tiny mouths full of clay, or tiny knees crawling on
straight pins...

sigh.

But they are pretty cute tiny knees...

I often take days to write these emails. A lot of what I write to all
of you is the stuff that I think about while I'm lying in the dark
with Elliot. I take the most entertaining thoughts in my head and
expound on them here, in an attempt to entertain all of you. My last
deep thought session, however, was on a topic not generally suited for
public consumption and yet... I am tempted to expound anyway. But I'm
not gonna.

Two days from now will see the inauguration of President Obama. It'll
be a historic event, not only will we be swearing in a black man for
the first time EVER but we will also be saying goodbye to the greatest
douchebag ever to reside in the White House. In honor of this
occasion I am borrowing a little tune from the Wizard of Oz, and
composing a ditty. Ready? Here goes:

Ding, dong, the ding-dong's gone
He stayed too long, but now he's gone
Ding, dong, the frat boy prez is gone!
He's gone back to play cowboy

(at this point Elliot woke up, and I never wrote down the end of the
song, and now I can't remember what it was going to be... sigh...)

eleven days later...

Elliot has been sick. I mean, really sick. Sick like runny nose and
coughing and can't sleep cause he can't breathe sick. I've almost
gotten used to sleeping the night in two shifts, which we will call
the "pre-bath" shift and the "post-bath" shift, because most nights I
have to get up in the middle of the night and run a hot bath and put
menthol on Elliot's chest and then wait for him to hack up whatever is
in his chest while I squeegy out his nose (which he hates). He's
finally on the mend... last night we had no bath at all, so that's
been good. However, clearly he was the plague carrier, because first
Dante got sick, and now I think I might be getting sick. Thankfully
both Waxor and Fuzzy seem safe so far, we'll see how that goes.

He got sick right after his most recent Pediatrician's visit. His
current height is in the 60%, his head size is in the 40% (which is up
a lot), and his weight is in the 2%. Sigh. He's really skinny. The
pediatrician was worried enough that she had him do a blood draw so
that she could check and make sure he wasn't gaining weight for a
medical reason. Aside from that she basically said "make sure
everything he eats is high fat" and I have to take him back for a
weight check in 4-6 weeks.

Today is Waxor's brithday, he's 29. I made him 200 mini-cupcakes
which I iced in three different colors and then laid out to look like
8-bit Link (from Zelda). If this sentence made no sense to you then
don't worry about it. If it DID make sense to you then you aren't
allowed to call me a dork, because you must be just as big a dork.
Waxor loved it. Tonight we're doing presents and dinner at home, and
then this weekend Kay is coming to visit and she's going to babysit
Elliot while we go out and do something. We were going to go play
laser tag, but given how people are feeling I'm not sure that's going
to happen. Anyway, it is a surprise, Waxor doesn't know she's coming,
i don't think, and since I probably won't actually send this today
(and if I did he likely wouldn't read it til this weekend sometime) I
figure I'm safe sharing this information. :)

I feel down in the parking lot at work today - I feel like I've
bruised half my body. But I did not let the baby get hurt, which I am
pretty proud of since it was not an easy to trick to keep him safe
while I hit the ground.



Monday:

I have a lot more stuff to talk about, but I have two important pieces
of news and then I'm sending this, everything else can wait until the
next email.

1) Elliot is walking. Sunday night Kay and Larry took us to dinner,
and there was another baby there. Elliot wanted to walk with the baby
soooooo badly that he did, and ever since it's sort of been getting
easier and easier. He'll now just turn around and walk to me if I set
him down a few steps away from me, and last night he took the cheerios
box, stuck it over his head, and then paraded around the coffee table.

2) Waxor is out of a job, Skyward is closing their doors on Friday.

Sigh.