Preoccupations

In listing Alicisms, how could I forget Manus? As if on genetic cue as she heads toward her second birthday, Alice has begun developing a fascination with Manus the Tank Engine, whom she identifies everywhere. She also asks me to name all his friends and now can identify Puhsy, too.

Tonight Edith let Alice in on the secret that there exist animated Manus stories that can be seen on the television set. Alice was so excited she could hardly stand it: Squealing almost as if in pain, she stridently appealed to the screen to show Manus! Manus! Unfortunately, the one DVD we have in that series features the #1 Really Useful Engine in only one short bit; the rest of the stories showcase other engines. Alice was in agony waiting for him to appear. When I finally suggested a bath instead, she seemed relieved to wave goodbye to the television and depart the scene of so much excitement.

I wish my preoccupations were limited to Manus. This week is something of a doozy, and we're trying not to let the panic overtake us. On the list:

1. Move out of Princeton (including all attendant subcategories of to-do items: pack, pack separately for six intervening weeks--weeks that include a beach vacation for the girls, an Africa medical mission for me and Tom, and a wedding for all, with Edith as flower girl and Tom as presiding minister; load truck; resolve outstanding bureaucratic details; say farewells; get to plane on time).

2. Prepare for trip to Africa (including get vaccines, resolve outstanding bureaucratic details like an entrance visa and power of attorney for kids, shop and pack, and in Tom's case--resolve final financial and logistical details for the whole group).

3. Wean Alice. Necessary by next Tuesday, when I'm scheduled to get a yellow fever vaccine contraindicated for breastfeeding. A year ago I thought Alice would be easy-peasy to wean, based on her seemingly casual relationship to breastfeeding, but at this point she's become a devoted comfort nurser. Not as intense about it as Edith was, and her nursing follows a fairly predictable daily pattern, but she's still committed. And it's rough. I can discipline myself to privations of various types, but it wrenches me to ignore my small daughter sobbing, "Mook! Mook! Mommy! Mommy! Mook!" Especially in the dark of the night, or when other people are listening to her sob and looking at me expectantly, as at daycare pickup or at some of these evening farewell occasions with friends. I try to explain, and people nod, but it's clearly disconcerting (and loud) for those around us. And when I see her tears roll down her small cheeks and find that at the end of a day that we've spent apart I nevertheless have to separate her from me again and walk away, it's awful. We've managed the nightweaning for the most part (I had to sleep in the car one night so I couldn't hear her crying) and Tom thinks I need to buck up and plow through with the rest. He's right, of course--there's no choice--but when she's crying for milk, everything in me rebels against it.

4. Complete my first two coursebook lists for the fall, to submit book orders by July 1. That means putting together my first two syllabi sufficiently to know what I'm assigning, which means I need to know what the classes are going to be about. Unlike textbook-based classes, history classes involve some 5-10 monographs (single-subject books) and several dozen articles or book chapters, plus primary sources. So there's a lot to plan. One of the courses is team taught, so we need to coordinate our plans this week, too.

I'm trying to be present for my kids and live in the moment with them through this time of transition, but then the thoughts start swirling. I'm ending one of my courses with a reading on global warming--a subject on which Edith wanted to read a Magic Schoolbus book tonight, too. By the time I finished looking at both, there was part of me in the apocalyptic, to-hell-with-it-civilization is-about-to-perish-anyway frame of mind that can start to seem the only response to the to-do list.

Unfortunately, apocalypse won't get the boxes packed by next Tuesday. (Though abnormal spring flooding did do a good job of washing many of them away...)