About me ...
Gearhead
Growing up with a mother who thought boys were better, I decided early on it was best to just be one. I eschewed Barbie dolls for tinker toys, legos and hot wheels. I helped my dad with home improvement projects, and acted as navigator on family vacations. I impressed boys by naming the make and model of every car that passed on the road. Don’t get me wrong … I wasn’t all boy. I had a pink bike with a banana seat and handlebar tassels, I never did master a bunny hop, and I spent many years practicing the art of dance (tap, jazz, ballet, clogging, Hawaiian, Maori, Tahitian). But my “masculine side” had a strong influence on my life. I excelled in math and science, and grew up to follow in my father’s footsteps – earning a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. I’ve studied combustion and engine design, and until recently was gainfully employed by one of the Big Three, designing engine cooling systems. In the almost 20 years I’ve spent behind the wheel, I never owned a car with an automatic transmission until, expecting a baby and tired of steering with my knee while juggling a cell phone, food, and stick shift, I figured it would be better to free up a hand. But I didn’t buy a minivan, hell no! I got a serviceable family sedan with a V-6 engine. I love exploring twisty back roads on my motorcycle. I can wield a nail gun, hang drywall, install a light switch (although as a rule, all things electrical kind of freak me out), sweat pipe, install cabinets, sink posts, build a deck, and I single-handedly shingled our old garage. I love hard liquor, football and fast cars. But I never did acquire a taste for beer (… shhhh, don’t tell anyone, or they’ll throw me out of the boys’ club for sure).
Mama
But now there’s a new girl in town. My mama bear emerged with the birth of my child, along with a new urgency to not recreate the abuse and dysfunction of my family of origin. My daughter is my ultimate teacher, lighting up new paths that have led me towards self forgiveness, healing and unconditional love. Being a mother is by far the hardest job I’ve ever had, not least because it is decidedly unscientific. Babies and toddlers are anything but rational – I doubt there is a time in our lives when we’re more driven by pure emotion. This is sometimes difficult for me to accept, but forces me to stretch and grow in new directions, forming me into a more complete person in the process.
I am now a stay-at-home mom who subscribes to many of the principles of – but has no plans to martyr myself on the cross of – attachment parenting. We practice (or practiced) extended breastfeeding, cloth diapering and babywearing (this and this are my favorites), but gave up on co-sleeping. I’m an amateur photographer, and an even more amateur writer. I am also known as S and Shasta. I use pseudonyms to keep this blog anonymous in an attempt to prevent family members from stumbling across it. This allows me much more freedom in the topics I choose to cover. I am a novice blogger, and although I can program in Fortran, Visual Basic, C++ and Matlab, I’m clueless when it comes to html, et al, and don’t have the time to learn right now. I have grander visions for this blog, but for now I make do as best I can.
You can contact me at gearheadmama at gmail dot com.
Mr. Gearhead (aka Mr. GH aka R)
Yeah, he’s an engineer too. Our evenings are spent discussing differential equations and fast fourier transforms. Our kid is cursed. Honestly, though, we also like music, art and movies, although all of that has kind of fallen by the wayside lately.
M
Our progeny, born in the summer of 2005 (an event I cover in excruciating detail here). Alternately infuriating and adorably cute, she’s my new boss, and sometimes I really want to quit my job. She’s the always-on-the-move anti-cuddle toddler who believes that sleeping is optional. She’s strong-willed and independent, loves slides and swings, and is a future-roller-coaster-rider in training. When she's in the right mood, the child eats food like nothing I’ve ever seen, including, of all the insane things, salmon sashimi. The only thing she consistently turns down is eggs. We’ve had digestive and pooping issues almost from day one, although we finally seem to be through the worst of it (thanks to craniosacral therapy, homeopathy and herbs).
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And now there's another one on the way. Yes, I am convinced on a daily basis that I am absolutely insane for doing this. ... I'm still excited.
Welcome to our little corner of cyberspace.