The One Where M Broke Mr. A's New Bike

For Mr. A's birthday last month, he got a new bike. After continuous comments for the better part of six months about how great a new bike would be, he was beyond excited to have finally gotten what he wanted.

After a few weeks, being able to ride the bike around the courtyard wasn't good enough. He started begging to be able to ride it to school. "How are you going to do that?" I asked. "I can think of a hundred things I'd rather do than run behind your bike, trying to keep up."


"You can get a bike, too," he said. Point taken. And I probably will, but who knows when that will be. Probably late one night in December, when I'm overtaken by some sort of manic urges to buy something. Or next month, when my travel card expires. But we'll see if I feel like riding a bike around then. In any case, I told him I'd think about getting one next month with the money I saved by not buying a travel card.


One morning, M decided to be nice to me by letting me sleep in and taking Mr. A to school. Mini-Minion wasn't having any of that, and she woke up as soon as they walked out the door. So I was curled up on the couch working when M came rushing into the sitting room.


"You're never going to believe what happened," he said. "I was riding Alex's bike back from his school, and--"

"What?" I asked.

He sort of waved me off, as if I had just asked the dumbest question. Of course it's perfectly normal to be riding a child's bike. :/



"I let him ride it to school, and I had to get it home somehow," he said. Or he could have just chained it up and let Alex ride it home later.


"Whatever," he said. "So I was riding by Mortlake Road and Lower Richmond, and I had to get back up on the sidewalk. I lifted up on the handlebars, and I got the bike up, but the handlebars kept coming and lifted completely out of the tube. But I kept going and had nothing to steer with, so it looked like one of those cartoons when they rip the steering wheel out of the car. I almost crashed into the brick wall, but I got my feet down in time. The worst part is, there were two workmen and a long line of cars down Lower Richmond who saw everything."


"I sat back down, but the bike seat was twisted 90 degrees, and I don't even know how that happened," he continued. "When I readjusted the bike and turned it around on the path, the tube inside the tire completely popped, so I had to carry the bike home. I turned to the workers and said, 'Wow, that could have been really bad.' One of them said, 'Yeah, it could have. Mate, I think that's a child's bike, and you're too big for it.'"

Blank stare.


"You broke his bike?" I asked.

"Well, I'll fix it," he said, throwing up his hands and rolling his eyes in response to the terribly offensive suggestion I didn't make.


"Yeah, but you broke his bike because you were popping wheelies on it when you probably shouldn't have been sitting on it at all," I said. "Just a hunch, but I don't think he's going to be thrilled about that."

"It was kind of funny," he said, "because my knees were practically to my chest while I peddled, so I'm sure I looked really stupid anyway."


I scrunched up my nose and turned my head to the side. "Maybe that should have been your first indication that you shouldn't have been riding it, yeah? The handlebars came out? Weren't you the one who put it together? Did you not tighten something?"

"Oh, I'm sure the problem is just that one of their parts sucks," he said. Of course. Totally logical conclusion to draw.


The afternoon came, and I was the one who had to pick up Alex from school. "Where's my bike?" he asked almost immediately. "Why didn't you bring it with you?"


"Ok, Alex," I said, "I'll be honest. Daddy broke your bike, but it's actually a really funny story, and when you hear it, I'm sure you'll think it's hilarious and you won't be mad anymore!" I sort of pumped my fists horizontally in the air to get him superwayjazzed about this fun and exciting story. Yeah! Your bike's broken, but your dad did it in such a stupid way, how can you not laugh?


The fact that in the end he actually did laugh about it should make his father eternally grateful that he has such a chill child.

Superwoman Syndrome

People who deal with me day in and day out can tell you one of the easiest ways to annoy me is to ask, "Why are you so tired?" Here's the rundown:


1. I work. Yes, from home, but I work just like anyone else. In fact, my job might be harder than a "regular" job, because I'm constantly interrupted. Imagine if you were working in an office and your coworker insisted on sitting on your computer or crawling all over you or talking to you constantly. Or crying. Or making messes EVERYWHERE. You've also got to make that coworker breakfast and lunch. It's not like you can ignore that. (Psst. . .at the end of the day, you have to like that coworker, too. Sucks.)


2. I'm doing a full-time, one-year master's program. In the States, our MAs are two years. Here, they're one. So two years of work crammed into one. It's intense enough as it is, I think, without all the other stuff added to it. I know some people who have a hard time juggling school and work.


3. I have two kids. Two young kids. In between doing the first two things, M and and I have potty-trained Mini-Minion, which has not gone as easy as I would have hoped, and certainly not as easy as it was with Mr. A. We also have to make sure Mr. A is taken care of. His current roster is:
Monday - swimming
Tuesday - free!
Wednesday - guitar
Thursday - combination dance & cub scouts
Friday - drumming & power station

I also try to go on field trips with him when I can. And on the weekends, my silly kids actually want to do stuff. With us.



4. Somewhere in there, I have to squeeze in time for M, friends, seminars, conferences, and calling family. They're all really, really important for different reasons. I need to add professional organizations to that list eventually, but right now, I just can't see where to fit it in.


This isn't for people to say, "Oh my gosh, how do you do all of this?!" It's so people understand why, at the end of the day, what I really want most in life is to sleep for a week. I'm really not complaining about my workload, and I don't think I complain about it much in person (maybe I'm wrong). My wants and interests are bigger than my time capabilities. This can cause problems sometimes when I have to make a decision between doing two things I really want to do.


We didn't make gingerbread ornaments for Christmas. We did nothing for Valentine's Day. I didn't even get valentines for Alex's class. We didn't make Easter eggs this year. The kids didn't have baskets. I keep pushing Alex's birthday party back. It's next weekend. I still haven't given the kids their invitations. I have no supplies. I'll probably throw it together at the last minute on Friday, and I'll be sad that nothing is the way I wanted it to be.


Are the kids upset? No, not really. Well, not at all actually. But there's a nagging sensation in the back of my head that never forgets to remind me that they'll only be little once and only for a short amount of time. I only get one shot at raising them. I don't want regrets.


As I said before, I haven't joined any professional organizations. They freak me out. I'm not networking like I should be. My seminar and conference choices are very limited in scope, and between the two, they're limited to about two or three per month, because I don't want to be away from the house more than I need to be right now. I have no job prospects in archaeology after graduation.



Is it a huge deal right now? Probably not. I've got time. But I'm not getting any younger, and if I want to be serious about this, then I've got to put myself out there. Opportunities are not going to show up on my doorstep. And I'm very aware that the more time that goes on, the less I'm actually getting accomplished professionally, and that's not going to be good for me five years down the road.


But the bottom line is: I can't do it all. I would love to be able to work, take care of the kids full time, keep the house spotless, do all the school activities, go to several conferences a week, make contacts with people from other universities, do research, travel with the kids, spend time with my friends, call everyone in my family once a week, find time to write, keep up with the blog, do personal development stuff like learn new languages or new crafts, read books, watch all the latest movies so I can at least carry on conversations with people, and do all those holiday activities you're "supposed" to do. And these are the things that weigh me down every day. I hate having limitations.


Deep down, I feel like a failure for not being able to swing it all. And when people ask, "Why are you so tired all the time?", it feels like they're saying the same thing. Like it should be easy.


But it's not, and rationally, logically, I know that.


I just can't seem to break the cycle of feeling like I need to do it all.