No Man's Land
Today Addy and I had lunch with two other new mothers who I used to work with. We chatted about Mom things ... solid food, milestones and whether or not to tell your husband if Baby fell onto her head because you are a bad mother (general consensus is to keep mum unless there is evidence).
We all have different things going on in our lives from full time work to total home renovation but we all agreed that it's not worth changing clothes after getting spit up on. I for one have started wearing more light colors and if I'm in line at the post office and Addy hurls all over the floor, I simply whip out the burp cloth - if that's unavailable, I have been known to us my sweater. Yeah, it's gross but so is curdled breast milk all over Addy's face when I'm trying to be taken seriously by a contractor.
Yesterday I found myself in the car with a sleeping baby and rather than waste the quiet time by returning to the house, I ventured out into No Man's Land a.k.a. Lakeview a.k.a. The 17th Street Canal. I hadn't been out there yet. Depsite what CNN has been showing since the storm, affluent areas were hit too. Thousands of white people cannot get back into their neighborhoods and many white people drowned in their homes. In addition, not every black person here is poor and spent three days on their roof because "mandatory evacuation" did not apply to them. Everything is about race in this damn city. Even the great debate as to when to hold elections this year comes down to race.
Anyway that's not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about the progress I saw. Every home out there needs to be gutted and many were on their way. The damage was so extensive that I don't know if I could do it. At least in my neighborhood and the surrounding areas there are enough businesses back that you can feel some sense of normalcy - out there it's just empty. The silence is overwhelming.
We all have different things going on in our lives from full time work to total home renovation but we all agreed that it's not worth changing clothes after getting spit up on. I for one have started wearing more light colors and if I'm in line at the post office and Addy hurls all over the floor, I simply whip out the burp cloth - if that's unavailable, I have been known to us my sweater. Yeah, it's gross but so is curdled breast milk all over Addy's face when I'm trying to be taken seriously by a contractor.
Yesterday I found myself in the car with a sleeping baby and rather than waste the quiet time by returning to the house, I ventured out into No Man's Land a.k.a. Lakeview a.k.a. The 17th Street Canal. I hadn't been out there yet. Depsite what CNN has been showing since the storm, affluent areas were hit too. Thousands of white people cannot get back into their neighborhoods and many white people drowned in their homes. In addition, not every black person here is poor and spent three days on their roof because "mandatory evacuation" did not apply to them. Everything is about race in this damn city. Even the great debate as to when to hold elections this year comes down to race.
Anyway that's not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about the progress I saw. Every home out there needs to be gutted and many were on their way. The damage was so extensive that I don't know if I could do it. At least in my neighborhood and the surrounding areas there are enough businesses back that you can feel some sense of normalcy - out there it's just empty. The silence is overwhelming.
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