Like an Enema, Time is Fleeting

OK, first? I can't believe I just typed that title.

I have I don't know how many few minutes here, so I'm just gonna spew stuff out until I come to an abrupt stop. I know, I know, such a departure from my normal well-thought-out, mannered entries.

We flew in to O'Hare one week ago today, and every day has involved long car trips and/or large gatherings, which is exactly as much fun as you can imagine it would be with a baby who is at the peak of separation anxiety. But for me, it's been lovely to see people--95% of whom I haven't seen since last year at this time--and weird to be seen as a mom now. You go through an identity shift when you first have a baby (duh), where for the first three months, when someone asks you if you have kids, you still start to answer "no," before you realize that, holy shit, yes you do! But then you get used to it and you and those around you begin to see "parent" as part of who you are. I hear that eventually that aspect gets integrated into your whole person; for me, I still see myself very clearly as "before" and "after" shots. It still feels short-term, possibly reversible. Like a new haircut. Not that I have any regrets about having a baby, just that it's hard for me to wrap my brain around something this huge, this life-transforming, this...forever thing. And while I flip back and forth between feeling totally natural and totally alien at this mama thing, I am also seeing myself now through other people's eyes and wondering what they see. You know, besides the giant rack.

So, the day before we left, MOTH and I got new phones. Fancy smartphones. Very possibly smarterthanmephones. We hadn't planned on going fancy, but when we signed our new contract, I was offered a new phone free, and the store had this buy-one-get-one sale, and we ended up getting two schmancy phones for free. I can haz interweb on my phone now! But my margin of error is still quite large on things as basic as, say, dialing, so I'm still learning how to work it. However, I have great hopes of blogging on the go, learning to take and post pictures and video, and generally amassing the technological skills of your average eight-year-old. In the meantime, however, I have been taking advantage of this hand-held treat to make notes for blog entries! (And a pox on those of you who would point out that, even before I got the fancy phone, I could have used something like, say, a pen and paper for the same purpose.) Here's what I've got so far:

On visiting my in-laws (who live in the NW corner of the state, in the middle of nowhere): "It's like Fargo, but without the accents and fugly hookers."

On my very sweet father-in-law's attempt to soothe a fractious Tankbaby during the loooong-ass car ride from the airport to their house: "Of course, because what else would you play an overstimulated, overtired baby to lull them to sleep but the opening song from Ragtime?"

On my own frustration after Tankbaby came down with yet another cold and thus yet another Crummy-Five-Interrupted-Hours-Of-Sleep-Followed-By-Three-Hours-Of-Fussing night, during which MOTH moved to the other room (later I found out that he moved because he was tossing and turning and afraid that he was making things with Tank worse, but at 4 AM, I just thought he'd left me alone with Hellbaby without saying a word, and so of course I lay there for two hours plotting our divorce followed by his slow, painful death by being pinched repeatedly by baby fingernails): "I realize that I'm not mad at MOTH, but I can't be mad at who I'm really mad at: the asshole in the diaper."

And, as a bonus for her fans, I give you my sister:

We had some family friends (Ed and Carol, a couple that have been friends with my dad since high school and their kids) over on Saturday night and played a board game. We divided into teams with the "kids" (who are all now over 30) versus the "old people." When my sister was assigning game pieces to the teams, she offered the parents team a black piece, "because you're all closer to death." When Carol literally tackled her from across the game board, my sister relented: "OK, OK, just kidding! You can be white." As Carol resumed her seat, my sister muttered, "Just like the light into which you'll be heading soon."


But enough about me. How have you all been? I have been learning to use Fancypantsphone to surf the web, but haven't yet had enough time/hands to comment on blogs, but rest assured that I'm stalking you all, quietly.

For People Without Kids, There's a Joke at the End

I've composed endless blog posts in my head this past week. They all start, "I'm so tired."

I am really making a concentrated effort to stop complaining about Tankbaby's sleep (I do acknowledge that various people in my life might take issue with how that effort is panning out). It's been an issue since he was born, and, while it is hard not to think about it (considering how my sleeplessness affects my ability to cope, much less succeed at anything these days), worrying about it does not make him sleep more, it only makes me sleep less.

So, while this topic takes up plenty of space in my head, I am trying not to complain about it to others. Besides the fact that it's BORING AS HELL to anyone who's not me (I'd originally added "or MOTH," but I'm not sure that he'd want to be included in this little party), I try not to talk about Tank's sleep much anymore because I don't want the advice that is inevitably, well-meaningly given. We are doing attachment parenting (or at least our version thereof), and I feel good about that decision, but I feel defensive when questioned or challenged about it. I may have all this early childhood knowledge to back me up, but I still have the same self-doubt any first-time mom has. My standard line is, "I've tried everything I'm willing to try." Without getting into the philosophical or academic reasons why I won't let Tank CIO ("cry it out," for those of you who aren't familiar with the lingo...on the other hand, if you aren't versed in sleep-training lingo, I'm guessing this whole topic is already inducing sleep in you), I can only say that I, personally, am not capable of letting my baby cry himself to sleep alone. He does sometime cry himself to sleep while one of us is with him, or if he's in the car, but to me that's way different from sitting in the other room while he cries.

That's why I was so glad to find Naptime Writing. She writes about parenting in a way that resonates with me: equal parts committment to certain ideals and ambivalence about how living up to those ideals feels in the day to day. Reading her archives, I came across this quote:


"...why the heck bother with all the attachment parenting? (Because we wouldn’t have it any other way. Every time I complain about not sleeping, someone tells me I can let my child cry. But that is not a real parenting option for us. Why in the name of all that is nurturing would we do that? When said child can get up to use the bathroom by himself, get himself a cup of water, and use soundly developed coping skills to get back to sleep, he will. Until then, any kid at my house who wakes from a deep slumber screaming in fear and sadness gets his mom. End of story.)"

And that's the kicker: I know this is my choice. I know that there are other options, but for me, there aren't. Which means that I choose this hell. Which means that I don't get to complain about it.

Except, except, except...I am slower on the uptake. I have less patience--with everyone. I yawn constantly, probably appearing rude to the parents of my kids at school. I am cranky. I want to challenge myself at work, but can't seem to find the energy to change things up.

I know that, in a year or two, this will be a blip. It's temporary, which is sometimes the lifeline I cling to at 4 AM when Tankbaby has decided that he wants to sleep on his stomach, but then realizes that rolling onto his stomach makes him want to crawl. In his sleep. So that he crawls into the side of the crib. Again. And again. And again.

And until then, I'm holding on. Sometimes with more swearing and under-eye bags than I'd like, but I'm holding on.


And now, for those of you who stuck it out this far: On Thursday, a car cut me off. It was a Jaguar with the license plate "THE JAG." I assume the "-OFF" wouldn't fit on the plate.

Ba-dum-pum!

Conveniently Bite-Sized

Sorry to have disappeared (immediate neurotic thought: is it presumptuous to assume that people care if I haven't written in a while?). Besides the Cold That Never Ended, there's been some goo at work that has sucked up my brain and I keep wanting to write about it, but being too paranoid to put it out on the interwebs. Everything that's not Cold or Work comes to me in tiny useless bites, like those "100 Calorie" pack versions of actual snacks:


Yesterday some preschoolers were headed over to a wooden boat and I heard one of them cry, "Come on, guys...Let's DO this!" Now, I'm not sure if you're getting the appropriate inflection from reading this, but imagine a frat boy exhorting his friends to pull it together for the last scrimmage of a football game (um...sports metaphor help, anyone?). This was not, sadly, followed by a series of tiny high fives. Except in my head.


In desperate need of something that turns my brain off, I have begun watching old episodes of 21 Jump Street on Hulu. I'm only four in or so, but so far I have to say? Not terribly impressed. I mean, this was big at some point, right? Did Johnny Depp's cheekbones really carry this show for four seasons? You'll note that I have plans to continue watching episodes, both in hopes that they improve and...well...the cheekbones, folks, they do not disappoint.


I recently came across this post on Ask Moxie. I'm a little embarrassed and more than a little anxious to admit that not only do I not have any disaster preparedness going on, I hadn't really thought about the need for such since, like, Y2K. I know we have water in the basement (in jugs, that is...not just, like, standing water) and some stuff in our chest freezer, but that's it. Although, at the moment, we are storing 1/7th of a cow for some friends of ours, so any time between now and Friday we'd have a better shot at survival. What do y'all have in the way of readiness for flood, famine, or zombie invasion?


Later tonight, we're supposed to go see our across-the-street neighbor play in his band. Turns out, he's the 2008 national yodeling champion. I have so many questions about this.


A friend of mine posted the following inquiry on Facebook: Skinny Elvis or Fat Elvis? Another friend replied that she couldn't stop singing the Fat Albert theme song in her head. "Hey hey HE-EY...it's Faaaaat Elvis!" You're welcome for that.

Gah. Still sickly, but better. Baby still sickly, but better. Now it's at that not-quite-incapacitating, but still-quite-affecting normal activities stage. I say again, gah.

***

Would you believe that I finally, finally bought some Christmas presents today? And by "bought," I mean "clicked 'continue to checkout' on my Amazon page." We're not doing too many gifts this year. One less full-time worker + one full-time baby = well, let's just all remember it's the spirit of the season that counts.

I talked to my dad this morning about our holiday plans. We've been trying to figure out how to schedule all the family and friend visits during the two weeks we'll be back in Chicago. We were fondly remembering the simple days when it was Christmas Eve with Dad's family, Christmas Day with Mom's, and New Year's Eve with friends. Then we went and grew up. Now there are in-laws and grandkids and friends' kids and in-laws and grandkids, and everyone has the nerve to live in different houses, cities and states. Plus, many of these people have these annoying jobs that limit their available time. The education field, people! Sure, you might miss things like "money" and "respect," but three weeks off for the holidays! Hard to beat.

If I could do a cool Venn diagram, I'd make one with various circles labeled "People I want to see," "People I have to see," "People who have never met Tankbaby," "People who only have Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and/or New Year's Day off...." You can see where it would get complicated.

Dad's take on it is, "This is why no one should marry outside the family." Beat. "Of course, the kids would all turn out weird."

***

Moms out there: any tips on how to clear the teeny baby nostrils? Right now we've got this whole try-to-nurse-realize-can't-breathe-open-mouth-stop-nursing-realize-hunger-cry-create-runny-nose situation. It's...less than ideal. He hates, hates, hates the bulb syringe. (Well, in his nose. He loves sucking on it.) So right now, there's this wrestling match where I try to manage his grabby hands, his kicking feet, his head that seems to spin 360 degrees, all in the face of the Squall of Extreme Anger.

It is always stressful, but today I watched two episodes of Dollhouse and the wrestling of an unwilling innocent onto a mat while performing a procedure...it seemed a little...darker, is all I'm saying. (On a side note, if Alan Tudyk is ever missing, check my purse.)

***

MOTH and I went out last night to see a show that he propped (meaning "provided the props for," but I'd hate to end with a preposition). It was The Lying Kind, a dark farce that was terribly funny, but I had a hard time enjoying it for the first half. The premise is that these two bumbling cops (because it's a British farce, you've gotta have the two bumbling cops...and a vicar) have to tell an old couple that their daughter, Carol, was killed in a car wreck. Now, all kinds of wacky hi-jinks ensue, but I kept thinking, "But Carol's dead! This is all funny now, but whaaat abooout Caaarolll?" It didn't help that the actor playing Carol's father was a) absolutely tiny and wizened, looking like a stiff wind would blow him down, and b) the same actor that played Herr Schultz in Cabaret, so I kept thinking "First the Nazis, now this!" Poor guy can't catch a break.

At intermission, MOTH was asking me how I was enjoying the show, and I had to confess my neurotic empathy that was putting a slight damper on how much I could laugh. I mean, obviously the play was a farce, so all would be well, but I just kept thinking that somewhere, someone would have cops show up to tell them about their daughter's tragic death (well, hello, Dark Side, I didn't see you come in!). MOTH laughed at me (mostly fondly, I'm pretty sure), and refused to reassure me that there was a misunderstanding and that Carol was fine. (Grounds for a good hard pinch? Discuss.) We went back in for Act 2 and I idly flipped through my program, until I saw an actress listed for the part of Carol. I crowed, "SHE'S ALIVE!! SHE'S ALIVE!!" much to the amusement of MOTH and the confusion of those around us.

It's possible I might need to get out more.

Pity, Party of One

Um, you know how when you haven't written for a few days you feel all, "Damn, I better make sure that when I do post it's really good, to make up for the time that's gone by"? But then you don't have the time/energy/whatever to write that "really good" post, and then another day has gone by? Yeah. Pardon our dust here, folks, but this is just an attempt to not get out of the habit of posting. Quality is most assuredly not guaranteed.

I am (wait for it) STILL SICK. I am feeling better than I was last week, but I can't get rid of the sore throat and headache. Tankbaby is also still sick, and letting neither of us sleep well, so neither of us are recovered. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that, despite neglecting you all to go to bed early each night, I've been averaging about four to five hours of sleep per night. Since last Wednesday. And that might be almost doable if it was four to five hours in a row. Sadly, they are broken up into chunks ranging from 15 minutes to two hours. In between these chunks is the tossing and turning of one Tankbaby, who, in addition to having a cold and teething, is apparently learning to sleep on his stomach. However, every time he rolls to his stomach while sleeping, he automatically starts crawling, because his poor baby brain is all HANDS DOWN PUSH UP ENGAGE LOCOMOTION, even while he's sleeping. And yet, this same sophisticated machine cannot seem to also point out that, if your nose is all stuffed up, BREATHE THROUGH YOUR MOUTH. You know, instead of, say, whimpering for upwards of an hour.

Argh, argh, argh. I've had three different paragraphs written at this point, all describing (with varying degrees of humor vs bitterness) the sleeplessness that has occurred and is likely to occur again. But I keep deleting them, because, really, if you've had a baby you know what I'm talking about without me having to spell it out, and if you haven't had a baby, you probably don't care about this new parent goo anyway, unless you are debating whether or not to have kids, in which case I think my testimony at this point would be a wee bit biased.

If I were to write what I'm really feeling right now, you'd get a long diatribe about how I can't get my act together, and how can I be a good mom and a good spouse and a good friend and a good teacher when I can't even GET FUCKING WELL, but that seems a little heavy, not to mention of interest to exactly no-one, not even really me. So, let's just see what's left. Consider this, if you will, the crumpled Kleenex in the blogosphere's pocket. Not terribly pretty, but useful if that's all you've got:

• Today I lost my voice entirely for a while, and the rest of the time had something akin to the voice of one gasping for their last breath. Yesterday I was all sexy Jessica Rabbit voice, but today I was like one of Marge Simpson's sisters (and thus ends our cartoon character vocal comparision section of the post). I received two suggestions from coworkers about the best way to handle this. One recommended hot Tang. I said, "Does my throat feel better before or after I throw up?" She insisted it was yummy, "like hot orange juice." I replied, "Yyyeahh...that's the 'throwing up' part I was referring to." She almost convinced me, though, when she said, "You get to feel like an astronaut." Well, hell... The other suggestion was, "Take a swig of hydrogen peroxide and tip your head back. Don't gargle, just poke your tongue up through the peroxide." I, again, made reference to vomiting, and he said, "Yeah, I do every time, but it totally works." Um, okay, then.

• It is a special kind of humility that settles upon you when you listen to a new CD of an old musician boyfriend and realize that, once again, none of the songs are about you.
  

• I had a kid yesterday ask me if I knew that Michael Jackson had died. I said, yes, I knew. "Because you saw it on your news show, right?" Well, sure. By the way, kid, do you know who Michael Jackson was? "I dunno. He's, like, an adult. But he had kids." And with this epitaph, she was off, pretending to be the mayor. "But I'm a nice mayor," she reassured me. I'm dying to know what they're watching on TV in that house.
  

• If you want to inject a little joy in your life, buy a box of old-fashioned gum drops. Then put them in the console of your car. Then, because you are sleep-deprived, forget that you've done this. For the next couple days, randomly reach for your cell phone charger, a CD, or a pen, and instead find...gum drops!! Be amazed each and every time.

Oh, people. Y'all are writing such neat stuff and I haven't commented. I do, in my head, as I lay there in the wee hours, compose pithy, yet brief comments for all that I've read. And I have been reading your kind words on this site, and yet responded not at all. Perhaps one of us isn't quite ready for the responsibility of a blog with readers, hmmm?

Don't give up on me! I will feed you and walk you and clean up after you. I promise. I just need a few more days. Eventually both me and the boy will run out of mucus and go back to Ordinary Shitty Baby Sleep, instead of EXTREMELY Shitty Baby Sleep. In the meantime...can I offer you a gum drop?

Now With Mouth Breathing!

I still have this dumb cold. I stayed home Friday, I have been napping and taking vitamin C, and so far? I have achieved exactly one thing: to pass the cold along to Tankbaby. Um, whee? Because now I have a headache, runny/stuffy nose, sore throat AND a cranky, teething, drooling, juicy-nosed baby who keeps forgetting he can breathe through his mouth, rather than snort and snuffle and wake himself up. Why, it's almost as soothing as one of those lavender-scented eye pillows. Except, you know, with boogers.

On the upside, today MOTH recovered a bench we have in the living room that was previously equipped with baby-cranium-stabbing corners. It now has a lovely mossy green upholstery with padding around all of its poky-out parts, thus to better protect the Tank's little bald head when he inevitably whacks it while trying to stand. We picked it out last night at the Big-Ass Fabric Store we frequent (yes, we frequent. I love having a husband who will roam miles of upholstery and have earnest opinions on the amount of gold in this one versus the cleaning nightmare that is silk. Just gay enough, that's how I like 'em). That's an exciting Saturday night at the Falling house, folks...upholstery shopping, followed by drive-thru food that we ate in front of Tank, all the while telling him that the single thawed peas on his high chair tray were "just as good" as our Yukon Gold waffle fries.

And while I had planned on making up for the past days' absence with a nice long post, I'm afraid I'm bailing on you. I need to go to work tomorrow, and I still haven't kicked this cold, so I really ought to begin my night of Inevitable Poor Rest, Now With Mouth Breathing! It took me 45 minutes to put Tankbaby down (um, to sleep, not like a horse with a broken leg, although around minute 41 I was thinking about it...), and sadly, those were your 45 minutes, people. I blame the baby. You all should write him sternly worded letters.

Somebody Call the Waah-mbulance

I stayed home today. I have a cold. It's not awful, not the swine flu or anything, just your Basic Annoying Head Cold, version 1.0. But it was bad enough that a) I wasn't feeling up to chasing children who might be able to defeat the Vaseline, and b) I didn't want to get anyone else sick. So I spent the day at home with the family. MOTH was kind enough to get Tankbaby out of the house a few times so that I could nap (Tank's mommy radar is extremely well-tuned, and our house is extremely tiny, so it doesn't usually work very well for me to just be in the other room if he's home. Also, I can't relax and sleep when I hear him fussing...stupid bonding). I'm feeling better now, but still head-cloggy and have that awful taste in my mouth that you get when you're all stuffed up. What is that phenomenon where you have a cold and your tastebuds are numb when it comes to food, but your own mouth tastes like what I imagine that Mucinex commercial character would taste like (and really, what is the deal with that? How much money did some ad exec make coming up with a talking wad of mucus? That's what you want the public to think of when they think of your product?)? Also, water tastes bad when you have a cold. But pound those fluids! Ick.

It is, as those of you with kids know, very different to be home sick by yourself versus home sick with a baby. When I have a cold, what I really want to do is get my cup of OJ, maybe some graham crackers, and a book and curl up under a blanket on the couch. I want to fall asleep as I'm reading, wake, pee, and go back to sleep. I want to have kleenex, phone, and computer within reach, thus to minimize any movement I may need to make. If the dog wants to come and curl up by my feet, so much the better. A little forlorn rain on the windowpanes? Perfect. I like to wallow, is what I'm saying.

With a baby, it's different (Ooh, lookit me with the cutting-edge realizations. This just in: Having kids changes things!). I'm lucky in that MOTH stays at home with the baby, so he was around and I was able to get a little rest today, but still. Baby's got needs and baby doesn't care if you're feeling like the underside of someone's shoe. So in between OJ and kleenex, there are still games of peek-a-boo, diapers to be changed, and dog hair to be pulled out of mouths.

I'm not complaining. Today was a picnic compared to the last time I was sick. When Tankbaby was about six weeks old, I developed mastitis. For the blessedly uninitiated, this is basically an infection in the breast. Symptoms include a fever, aches, chills, and lots of tenderness around the infected area. Treatment is hot compresses on the boob, massage, and as much nursing/pumping as possible, because you want to unclog the milk duct. If those don't work (and they didn't for me), then you get antibiotics. If that doesn't work (and they did for me), then you get to undergo (shudder) a lancing. That was threatened, but deemed unnecessary.

Oh, and I'm forgetting the most important part: rest. If you look up mastitis, you'll find over and over again that you're supposed to rest.

Now.

If you have a young, nursing baby (which is basically a given if you have mastitis), how in the blue fuck are you supposed to apply-heat-massage-pump-and-ABOVEALLFORTHELOVEOFGODREST?!? Oh, and don't forget nursing the baby as often as possible. But rest! I was miserable, not just because of the achy, flu-like part of things, but because I kept feeling like I was stupid, that there must be some way to do this, because my midwife and all the books kept giving me these simple instructions and I couldn't figure out how to do it. I could nurse the baby, but then I couldn't pump afterwards, because who could hold the baby? I could massage with one hand while holding the baby, but how could I apply the heating pad without it touching him? And exactly how was I supposed to rest with a baby who never slept, plus instructions to not let milk build up in the breast and to apply heat and pump in the middle of the night?! Sure, MOTH helped when he got home from work, but he also needed to eat, pee, feed me, the dog, and do any of the laundry/dishes/bills that I certainly wasn't getting to in the day.

What happened was a) this fed nicely into some PPD for me, and b) luckily, my dad was scheduled to come visit about that time, so he was able to help out a lot. Poor dad. Yes, he got to see his first grandchild, but he also saw a lot more of his daughter's ta-tas than he'd probably prepared for. But, bless his heart, he walked the floor with Tank while he screamed (Tank, not Dad, although I wouldn't have blamed him if he did), and I sat, pale and frumpy, and massaged and heated and followed instructions. Then, when the baby finally fell asleep, Dad would maintain whatever magical position or movement had led to this miracle, recognizing that to do something as simple as shift your weight could wreck it all. So he held still. He was the baby Beefeater. So I did nap, and I did heal. (Oh, and before I forget? The antibiotics you take for this condition? Require a very strict eating schedule, as you're not supposed to eat for an hour after you take the pill or for two hours before you take the pill, and you have to take them four times a day. Also, they cause diarrhea. So you've got regimented eating and spontaneous pooping. Not a great combination for someone solely responsible for the well-being of a tiny infant, is all I'm saying.)

Anyway, the point is that today wasn't so bad.

In other news, but related in that it's interesting to no one out side of our household, we have a tooth! Tankbaby's first tooth (at almost nine months old) is poking it's pointy little...um, head, or something up out of his little bald maw. While it's exciting in a milestone way, I confess to being a little sad. For some reason, I really like the gummy mouth. It's so pink and simple. Teeth seem weird in babies to me, as extraneous as a mustache. I know that I'll get used to it, but right now imagining him with teeth seems very strange and false and I think of Kermit the Frog in this old Sesame Street sketch.

And now I must shuffle off to bed, in hopes of defeating this dumb cold and enjoying tasting things again.

How Can You Miss Me If I Don't Go Away?

It felt a little weird not to write yesterday. I didn't intentionally take the day off, all FUCK YOU NABLOPOMO, it just so happened that we really needed to grocery shop and then Tank wouldn't go to sleep and the evening just...elapsed.

As experiments go, I'd have to call my wee blog thus far wildly successful. As my best friend told me today, "Expect nothing, but hope for the best." I went into this blogging thing with very few (real) expectations (I'm not counting indulgent, quit-my-job-and-become-rich-and-famous-like-Dooce fantasies), but I was hoping that someone might find my little trifles amusing. The fact that I have such smart, witty, and all-around swell people reading and commenting this early in the game is the best success I could have hoped for.

And, of course, me being me, I take that sweet success, hold it close...and then twist it around and crush it until it becomes Pressure! To Do More! Because what if they like you now but then you don't write every day or you keep writing every day and run out of ideas or you keep writing maybe not every day but most days and they still stop reading because it's just too much?!?

Say, anyone out there need something simple and good turned into something complicated and anxiety-producing? Perhaps a simple "congratulations" that you'd like me to turn into paranoia over jealousy? Or maybe an excellent recipe that I can convince you is harboring salmonella? Any takers? I'll be here all night.

I guess that's all I have for tonight: many, many thanks for reading this past month, and a sweaty-palmed, dry-mouthed desperate desire to make you promise to stay. Can't say I don't make an attractive offer.

Oh, and this: So, at school, I have a couple of kids who like to open one of two doors in the classroom and run off. They think it's oh-so-fun to be chased by the silly big people. We can't lock the doors, so my assistants came up with the idea of putting Vaseline on the door knobs to hopefully slow the little Steve McQueens down a bit. This tells me that I either work with the smartest women on the planet, or that my job is populated by refugees from a Tom and Jerry cartoon. I'm good with either.