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A few weeks ago we decided that it was about time for us to make the big move back to reality, a.k.a the East Coast. So December 20 marks our final day in the northwest.
Living in Portland, OR is a little bit like living in a fairytale. You know that Disney is selling kids plastic lunchboxes as a result of your utter content yet you cannot look away. In the same way PDX has it’s issues: gentrification, systemic racism, anti-religious sentiment and annoying hipster culture. But it’s got nothing, I tell you nothing on the great Commonwealth of Virginia. We’re ready to get back to some good old fashion racism (I swear I just watched a Chappelle clip about this). None of this rezoning, redistricting nonsense. It’s time for the out-in-the-air racial profiling, KKK leaflet distributing Manassas, Virginia.
To make matters worse we are moving from dancing naked in the street drinking a direct trade latte in a community garden utopia to Manassas where dreams go to die. I grew up in Manassas and since my departure things have changed a lot. Our city, the furthest suburb of Washington DC has seen an explosion in the number of undocumented workers in the past ten years. A lot of this has to do with the huge amount of construction happening in the new far-out exurbs of Gainesville. My high school now has more students speaking Spanish than English as their primary language in the home.
So what’s a well-meaning Manassian to do? Restrict the number of people who can live in a family home and have the police ask for ID from any dark skinned person you see walking down the street. The results: it worked! 1 in every 112 homes in the city is in foreclosure and over 7,000 houses are abandoned as undocumented peoples (and others who are simply disgusted) move into Fairfax, Falls Church and Vienna. Racial tension is on the rise and the related issue of gangs, the result of young men who are unsupported and displaced, is still a major issue. Attempts at worker centers and support agencies have met with threats of violence. The KKK has even distributed leaflets at places activism is happening.
When I heard about all this going down my heart was stricken with fear as the thought dawned on me, “what if the Lord calls me to Manassas to support undocumented workers there.” Our city of trailer parks butting up against McMansions on opposite sides of town flanked by strip malls where the most viable employment is Lockhead Martin is not exactly where I imagined the Lord sending me. Plus I read Hebrew. Ancient Hebrew. Spanish, not so much.
And I don’t know that he necessarily has sent us. We’re going back to Manassas to reconnect with my family, for Jacob to have an opportunity to look for more meaningful work in DC, for me to afford to stay at home with babe and perhaps do something less intense for a few months. Chances are we’ll be out of Manassas in less than a year. But I can’t help but wonder, if we don’t stay there, who will? I’m trying to keep my heart open and my ear tuned as we enter this new season. One thing I know of God is that his plans are not my plans.
In case you wanted a better snapshot of the kinds of things we’ll get to see and experience while we are there check out the youtube clip. Fortunately I have a lot of hope as I’ve learned about the new IAF affiliate who is beginning to organize in the area. I’m excited to see some action taking place and am pleased to see the churches are taking the lead.
Here’s our first e.c. video. Jake’s pretty hilarious with Scout on the toilet. Lots of singing which usually distracts her as in this clip. They are so cute together.
The widow’s peak comment refers to T’s current hair situation. The head has grown and the hair has not so she looks like she’s wearing a toupee. Jake enjoyed the solidarity of someone else in our family experiencing hair loss.
Al-Qaeda has officially endorsed McCain. Look out.
Here’s the reason why:
An American president who keeps troops in Iraq indefinitely, fulminates about Islamic terrorism, inclines toward military solutions and antagonizes other nations is an excellent recruiting tool. In contrast, an African-American president with a Muslim grandfather and a penchant for building bridges rather than blowing them up would give Al Qaeda recruiters fits.
I think I ate my last fresh tomato today. This is always a day that causes me to feel a little sad because I like summer food better than winter food. So to commemorate this day I give you a silly poem called “Goodbye, Tomato.” Here’s to all the local eaters as we welcome a new season.
Goodbye, tomato.
Hello, potato.
Welcome back brusell sprouts and rutabaga,
rainbow chard and curly kale,
onions, carrots, scallions, garlic.
Goodbye berries.
Goodbye peppers, plums and celery;
see you later grapes, cantaloupe, watermelon, peaches.
In come beets and squash and pumpkins,
apples and pears,
all our canned things, dried beans, saved things.
Into the borscht, colcannon, split pea soup.
No more for green beans, gazpacho and fresh salsa.
Goodbye summer, farmers market and the garden.
Goodbye, tomato.
Hello, potato.
Our baby Scout is getting dedicated at church at the end of November. Part of the task for us as parents is to say something about what that dedication means for our family. I was thinking about that tonight when I read in article in the Times, “The Love That Shines Through” about a severely disabled boy who recently had his bar mitzvah. The descriptions of the family experience of the boy reminded me so much of L’Arche. While other kids are pulling away from their parents, he loves them closer and unconditionally. He wants to communicate so badly and he’s filled with emotion. “He eats with gusto” was another phrase that reminded me of my friend J who also eats like every meal is her last.
Dedications, bar/bat mitzvahs, baptisms. These are all ceremonies of welcome into communities that carry with them specific requirements from the one being welcomed. I am always in awe when I see someone with a disability being welcomed in this way because it reminds us of what we are really doing. It isn’t about us and what we can give or the promises we make. The community chooses to take on the responsibility to aid and be present to us, sometimes when there is no way we can do the things to which the Gospel commits us.
I was also thinking about John Howard Yoder and his take on interfaith dialog. He says that sometimes we need those outside the church to teach us how to be the church. I loved this article and thinking about the ways we welcome those who experience extreme dependence into the full communion of our common life. I thought it was telling that the Reform family in the story sought out the much more pious and evangelical Hasidim for their child’s bar mitvzah. This was the wisdom that turned them to this community: “He explained that kids so handicapped are actually on a higher plane than you or I. We’re put on earth to perfect ourselves, and most of us have so much to do. But there’s not much they can do, they’re nearly complete. A couple of little tweaks and they’re ready to meet God.” For someone who has only ever heard his child defined by his inability, this must have been a breath taking statement.
I was inspired by Gryffin’s arrival over at blip and put together a birth story of our own round baby. While Jason’s does involve some grainy-ish birth scenes, ours has the real thing, straight up. We’re happy to share it with you but since it does tend towards the graphic side, we saved it on you youtube as a private video. There’s only 20 seconds of actual birth. Lucky you! You get all the joy without the preceding 40 hours of labor!
Sign up for the Tube, become my friend (florerbixler) and we will add you so you can see it. We’re fine to share it, we just figure the extra effort will ensure that some poor junior high student looking for clips on the founding of the boy scouts won’t be traumatized by accidently running across our baby’s sliminess coming into the world.
I often find myself implicated in the findings of Stuff White People Like and I always feel a bit self conscious when I do. I got busted recently by #107, “Self Aware Hip Hop References.” Yes, I know all the words to Arrested Development’s Tennessee. Yes, I knew that was Mos Def in Talladega Nights. Yes, I almost brought my 4 week old daughter to see Talib Kweli with all the other self aware hip hop listening white people in Portland.
But I am not ashamed to promote Nikki Giovanni’s “Hip Hop Speaks to Children.” It’s a survey on the spoken word put to verse: blues, jazz, hip hop and poetry. It comes with a CD. I am super excited.
Today is the last day to register to vote. Please register to vote. Then vote.
In my world (Duke Div/Religion) there’s a lot of talk about not voting as an act of political witness by the church. Paid family leave is one of the myriad of places where I have a difficult time seeing how local community action or “church witness” is going to help change the situation of women like the single mom in the video I posted. Even if you don’t address paid leave on a federal level, it’s going to need to be legislated by the state. The reason: the free market system works off of greed and fear. No one is going to grant paid leave unless it is legislated (even well-meaning, family-supportive Catholic institutions like the one where I work).
This is also why I continue to bring up the demographic of the non-voters in my theological circle. The most vocal are heterosexual, middle-class, educated, white males who have no history of disenfranchisement. They also continue to allude the questions of how exactly we plan to address extremely timely issues that require resource investment on a national scale: health care, global climate change, war and paid family leave. As much as I appreciate the church’s alternative politic, I’m also interested in knowing that the most vulnerable parts of our world will be protected and cared for immediately, not when the other 90% of the church wakes up and realizes that it’s an alternative politic.
Until that day me and my people will be casting a vote in November, not as a way to shirk our local community activism or to worship at the throne of Caesar. But it’s one vehicle for change and I encourage you all to use it.
I don’t think I’ve yet posted on our work situation now that Scout is in the picture. I always try to be careful about work postings since that’s how you get fired. But I think this is an important one. I’ve talked about my interest in working towards paid family leave at the Catholic university in Oregon where I earn my daily bread. My situation is like virtually every other woman’s situation in the US. I got 12 weeks of unpaid leave and scrounged together 4 weeks paid out of my sick leave and vacation. This also meant that I had to work up until the Friday before I went into labor at almost 41 weeks (I went into labor that Sunday night). The only reason this was workable for us is that Jacob reduced his hours to stay home with the baby in the afternoons and I work from home in the mornings. J also goes to work at 5:30 in the morning.
It’s totally and utterly exhausting. I end up having to wake up with Scout around 7 to start working. Between 7 and 12 I have to work 3 hours, get myself ready to go, pump a bottle for dad to give her in the afternoon, nurse, change diapers, interact, get her to sleep, wake her up, put her in clothes, pack up the car, make my lunch and be at the Max station to pick up J. Then we switch off. He drops me off at work and comes back to get me at 4:30. Rinse and repeat. This semester I also take every Friday off which is how I’m managing to stay sane. But since I rarely am able to get my morning schedule to work as I would like, I end up having to work on Fridays a bit too. I haven’t taken a nap in a month.
As crazy as this seems, the other options was to take 8 weeks off full time at and then return to work full time with no sick leave and no vacation banked. So we did what we needed to do. One thing I can say for my Nameless Employer is that they were much more flexible with me than other employers in our fair city. What happens next semester is another story. Those negotiations are yet to take place.
That’s how it’s gone down for the Flo-Bix family. The movement for paid family leave charges on. Maybe by the time Flo-Bix 2.0 is in the picture (approximately 3 years from now if I have a say, which I don’t) Barack will have made it happen for me. John McCain and his “spending freeze” for everyone but veterans, not so much (not sure why veterans get the priority while single mothers, the homeless, children, the disabled and the middle class get the shaft. Oh wait, he’s trying to win their votes….). Here’s an Al Jazeera English story in two parts about what’s happening here in America’s more progressive corner.
One of my favorite parenting duties so far (there are very few since Scout is still pretty much a puddle of goo) is elimination communication or diaper free baby.
Our baby is far from diaper-free at this point but I’m hopeful that someday soon she will be. Elimination communication is helping your baby not soil herself. The idea is this – every animal on earth tries to get away from its waste. Human animal mamas in the West are the only animals that have their babies sit in their own poop. A lot of countries in the Global South read their babies signs to figure out when they want to urinate or have a bowel movement. They then hold them over a bowl and let them do their thing. And they never wear diapers.
EC is remarkably easy and extremely satisfying. I’m guessing that sometime soon it will be added to the basic retinue of attachment parenting (along with co-sleeping, baby wearing, immediate response to babies needs, breastfeeding, informed birth and positive discipline). We’ve been ECing Scout since week two after a couple of weeks observing her signs. Until a few days ago she basically pooped after she was done nursing making it very easy to figure things out. Plus, there are some tell-tale signs that eliminating is about to happen: spitting up is the big one along with grunting, squirming, grimacing and, if I’ve accidently consumed any dairy, a lot of screaming. In general bowel movements are very scary for babies. They don’t like the way their bodies feel and they can get pretty agitated.
We started off just having her poop on a prefold. Then we moved to her lying back on my legs and being held up over a little Tupperware container. But last week was the big move. She finally pooped on the toilet. It was awesome. I can’t even express how excited I was. In EC world this is called a “catch.” If she poops in the diaper, it’s called a “miss.” A really important part of EC is that it’s not about rewards or punishments (although I’m sure T has noticed how excited I am when we have a catch). If she’s not into it, I can’t read her signs or it’s the middle of the night, then we miss and that’s okay. This isn’t potty training and hopefully, if we keep this up, we won’t ever have to go through the nightmare of bribing our two year old to use the toilet.
The big challenge is that she’s changing every day. She doesn’t poop every time she nurses now. And she’s getting in the habit of being held over the potty and wants to do so sometimes at 4 in the morning (ugh). But if you read her wrong and hold her over the toilet and she doesn’t need to go, she gets really mad. Plus, there are always misses which is fine, but of course we would love to give her the opportunity to not poop on herself as much as we can.
From what I hear from other ECers, there is some resistance to elimination communication. I live in the alternative parenting capital of the country, so I wouldn’t know. We know babies that have been held in the bushes in public parks when there wasn’t a toilet around.
So that’s diaper free baby. See the picture above for our technique and a classic picture of Scout’s face. Yup, she definitely needs to go.
