Missed Another One

Iris went to her first school dance, a 50's theme party. She was so excited. I even made her a poodle skirt. I found out the week before the original dance party date, that I had to attend an important meeting in Denver. Fortunately, the dance party was postponed till this month. But, when the new date approached, I found I had to attend a meeting in DC most of that week. I was scheduled to fly home during the dance.

I emailed her nanny and asked her to take lots of pictures. Here are M and Iris, looking quite adorable. The Japanese irises in the backyard even smiled for their photo-op.

Fortunately, the meeting ended on time and I arrived at the airport in time to take an earlier flight. I got off the plane at LAX at 7:00 PM and arrived at her school for the dance at 8:00 PM.

I am so sleep deprived. The entire week, I found myself unable to fall asleep until about 11-12:00 PDT. Yet, I had to wake up at 7:00 AM EDT each morning--when my body said it was 4:00 AM.

I intend to follow up on Rebekka's comment, when I get caught up with my sleep, my email and file my trip report. In the mean time, you might want to read Linda Hirshman's blog post about institutionalizing inequality. "I'm just not enamored of restructuring the work place in order to enable women to bear more of the responsibility for the unjust family."

Neither am I.

Yeah, in France, mothers get Wednesday's off with full pay to do housework and take care of children during their weekly early dismissal day. No, fathers do not even have the option of taking Wednesdays off instead of the mothers. Employers are compelled to pay the mothers for that time off.

Try finding a good job if you are a mother in France. In fact, according to an article (perhaps in Working Mother or Women?) about being careful what you wish for, even childless married women have difficulty finding jobs after they turn 30.

So, I don't really look toward France for a solution.