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Archives from 2002-2006

Dylan occasionally has a flaky scalp — the dreaded cradle cap that repulsifies a perfectly cute baby the way a monstrous booger or an eye-watering diaper will — and over the last few days it worsened into Ally-Sheedy-in-The-Breakfast-Club proportions. I tried moisturizing his head with some baby oil, but I couldn’t get it rinsed clean so he looked even worse afterwards, his hair greasy and slicked into weird swirls like a particularly seedy used-car salesman, the dry skin clinging tenaciously to his Exxon-head in gross yellowy flakes.

I had a vague memory of some recommendation to use a pure, natural oil, and BabyCenter confirmed the advice, so this afternoon right before his nap I thoroughly basted the top of his head with a massive amount of extra virgin olive oil. I didn’t mean to use quite so much but when I poured it into my palm it came out in a startling glug-glug-glug and I issued a little shriek of surprise and immediately turned to him and rubbed it in, the whole dripping slimy handful of it, my brain apparently unable to think of any other course of action (let it drip in the sink? Blot with a paper towel? No, let’s just wipe it on the nearest infant).

He was as slippery as a Crisco-coated otter and smelling like something that should be consumed with a loaf of french bread and some balsamic vinegar, and since he was getting tired and perhaps justifiably cranky I figured I’d let it soak in and deal with the mess later, but something told me to re-check that web page and sure enough the next paragraph after “some parents find an oil remedy helpful” was this: “the last thing you want to do is leave oil on his head, which could clog the pores and cause the flakes to stick“.

So I had to take him in the bath with me and shampoo his head about six hundred and fifty million times because wow, a gallon or two of olive oil is a bitch to get out of someone’s hair, and it looks like it maybe did the trick but he still smells like salad dressing and now my bathtub has a ring of some sort of . . . organic oil-and-baby-schmutz substance.

Next time, I’m just doing this:

(Hi, I’m still talking about career stuff and work situations and whatnot, so if you’ve had enough of this blather may I recommend visiting this website instead, which, if you’re like me, will leave you shaking your fist at the screen and mumbling darkly about how that is too a wizard, you know a goddamn wizard when you see one.)

I have wasted a big chunk of my life succumbing to inertia. Whether it was drinking, not getting in shape, sticking with an unrewarding job because it was too much work to make a change, not pursuing my personal interests beyond cursory distractions — it’s only been in the last few years that I really feel like I’ve started to break out of my holding patterns.

A big part of that has to do with parenthood. For me, the sea changes parenthood brought to my life have been so challenging it’s helped kick my ass out of my comfort zone. It’s reminded me that big rewards often require big sacrifices, it’s helped me realize that I am able to accomplish so much more than I tend to give myself credit for.

For the first time I truly believe I can do more, careerwise, than I’m doing now. I believe in my abilities and I believe I am marketable. I believe that given the right set of circumstances I could take the big terrifying step into freelancing full time — and for once, fully owning my professional success. My career aspirations boil down to this: I want to get out of it what I put into it. I believe the path for me to achieve that goal is working for myself.

There’s little to complain about with my job as it stands. I have a good salary, I get cushy benefits, I have a completely relaxed and malleable schedule. If I were to make any big adjustments I’d have to face all kinds of challenges, starting with the financial ones — if I made less than I do now but spent the same on childcare, the impact on our budget would be significant, maybe even insurmountable. I know from my experience being unemployed or on maternity leave that being at home full time has the potential to make me unhappy: lonely, resentful, and downright weird. I harbor no illusions that eliminating the physical separation between work and home would be without its difficulties when it comes to maintaining a sense of schedule and focus.

On the one hand, I think, why even consider trading comfort for the unknown? Why take on the dangerous possibility of making a change for the worse, especially when I’ve got my family to consider?

On the other, the knowledge that success takes hard work and risk.

I could tell myself that I’ll pursue my dreams at some later date, maybe when the kids are older, but why? There is no better time for me. I am strong and capable and I can do it all — I can be a great mom and I can make a happy life for my family and I can delight employers and I can run my own business. I know this.

I also know this: you can’t sit back and wait for good things to happen. When it comes to anything worth doing, you have to be willing to step up. I’ve gotten my shit together in so many ways over the last few years. The question I’m mulling over is, what else am I capable of?

Do you have a story about taking on risk in order to pursue a dream? I’d love to hear it.

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