Daily Kvetch

Funklet

Minutes before I found out about the Newtown elementary school shooting I was high on life.  The night before had been my company's holiday party and the VP of my department had given my team a free pass to go see the new Hobbit movie on the company dime.  I got a text from B about 30 minutes before it ended saying, "I hate society so much right now."  I had no idea what was going on.

To me that day is a big wagon wheel of bad emotions.  I don't remember the euphoria of the movie or a work hooky day with my co-workers.  I remember the cold hard despair of trying to piece together what happened on my tiny cell phone screen and that liquifying feeling that there was absolutely nothing I could do to keep my kids safe in this world.

Yesterday, sitting in an Au Bon Pain with family, LM was going through my purse and found a notebook I keep in there.  One page had some doodles on it and the rest was blank.  He asked why it was blank and B said, "Your mom doesn't have much of an interior monologue" and I piped up with, "Excuse me, I have a very rich and anxious inner life" to which he burst out laughing so hard he literally snorted his latte out his nose.

I do, you know, have a very anxious inner life.  The daily exercise keeps it in check but it is no small secret that I would probably benefit from some medication.

We went to Las Vegas during the April vacaction week.  We went to visit B's parents who are now in a hospice type home there and also to see my side of the family.  My mom's two brothers live there with their families and one uncle/aunt set have taken a very active role with my kids and we stay with them and experience what it must be like for other people who have parents who can both spoil and watch over the grand kids.  Plus, believe it or not, there is a whole host of cool things to do with kids in Las Vegas and very little of it is on the strip.

Before we left, we had decided that since this is our only real travel vacation of 2013 ($2600 just in air plane tickets for 4 people!), we would do a day up and rent a cabana at the Mandalay Bay resort and casino.  They have loads of different heated pools and a sandy beach area.  It costs a lot to rent it but we decided to go for it and have a beach day.  We invited B's sister and my uncle and aunt to come and join us if they could and they did in the afternoon.

Prior to their arrival, we were finally in vacation bliss.  We were all having fun and real life seemed far away.  When my uncle arrived he asked us if we had heard there was a bombing at the Boston Marathon.  We hadn't.  There was a large screen TV in our rented cabana and we turned it on.

Our vacation has a very clear before and after bombing delineation.  Prior to the news, we had felt carefree, afterwards, it hung over our heads.  While we perked up for the kids and relatives, we would sneak glances at news stories and track to see if we knew anyone who was hurt or killed.  We didn't thankfully, although I will never get the picture of that little boy out of my head. 

We flew home Thursday after a two hour delay at the airport and our pilot going an extra long way to avoid a storm.  My kids don't sleep on planes and so it was a long horrible day.  By the time we got to our car in the long term parking lot it was close to midnight.  Routes we knew to go were shut down.  We noticed a heightened police presence but thought it was marathon related.  We didn't think to turn on the radio as the kids were finally and blissfully asleep in the back.

As we drove home through some back roads, we kept having to pull over for police cruiser after cruiser speeding by us.  "Maybe it is an accident?"  I said.  "No," B mulled, "something is going on, this is way too many police cars."  We were probably passed by about a dozen within 5 minutes.  We made a decision to go a slightly different way to get to our house and didn't see more cops.

We pulled into our driveway and decided to unpack the car the next day.  We carried our sleeping children into the house and put them in their beds and decided to see if we could find anything online about what was potentially going on with all the police.

Being that we were away all week, we had shut everything down including our internet connection.  As B was getting everything turned on, he suggested I go to Boston.com on my iphone and sure enough in a tiny non-mobile optimized header there was the name of our town.

You might never have heard of my town before a couple of weeks ago but now you do.  Watertown, MA.

Timing wise, we pulled into our driveway about 20 minutes after the big shootout/explosions and right when the manhunt began for the younger brother.  I could walk to where this all went down in 30 minutes if I wanted to do so.  I can walk to the house with the boat where he was found in about 15 minutes.

Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep that night.  I did drift off around 3am only to be awakened at 6am via texts from my work friends to see if we were still in Las Vegas.

Thanks to jet lag, I was the only one awake when the doorbell rang at 8am and there were armed National Guardsmen asking if I had seen or heard anything suspicious and letting me know they were searching around my house and neighborhood.  It was the first of 3 times that day this would happen.

The "shelter in place" would have been more bearable had we not just gotten home from a week away.  We had no milk, bread, eggs, or fruit in the house.  Sure, we had "food" and made do, but when your kids can't open the shades, go outside, and have to eat the B rated food, it is hard to make them understand why.

The phone rang off the hook all day from well meaning family and friends checking in on us.  Of course, having gotten so little sleep and feeling sick with anxiety and the beginnings of a cold, I would try to nap at times.  This is when the phone would typically go crazy.

When they let us go outside, I started to unpack the car and talk to my neighbors.  Everyone was in their pajamas.  It was roughly 5pm.  It was short lived as we noted the uptick in the sirens and the choppers overhead.  He was captured a few hours soon after.

My funklet is not exclusive to this event. I have been dealing with a year long pain in my left lower back hip area which was finally diagnosed as a mix of "SI joint" and "sciatic nerve" issues which seem to have no probable cause of why they started other than getting older and, as the specialist said, "the straw that broke the camel's back" in that it was roughly a bunch of things leading up to it.  My physical therapist and her exercises have helped a lot and now I am to go get some deep tissue massages that, I have been warned, "might make me cry."  I might cry just because they aren't covered by insurance and you can't use FSA funds for it and my doctor says it would best to get them weekly.

I always wish I had my mom around but this is when I really wish I could get a maternal hug from her and she could give me advice.  How do we keep going trying to raise happy confidant kids and keep them safe in this crazy world when a college kid and his brother the next town over plant bombs 15 miles from your house and throw bombs at cops a mile away?  How can I continue to plan a future for myself and them when I worry I might be in a wheelchair soon or pill popping due to chronic pain?

Sometimes I think I know what she would say.  She would say "You could be hit by a bus tomorrow" or "There is nothing to do but keep moving forward."  And I tell myself those things too but honestly, I think the hug would help.

Anniversaries

Someone I used to work with posted a FB status about how she couldn't believe 3 months had passed since her father had passed away and before I knew it, I had commented that it doesn't get easier but it gets more bearable.  I don't know if I was sharing my experience, wisdom, or just basically saying, "Yes, I have a dead parent too.  Join the club, kid."  It could have been a combination of a little of each, I am not entirely sure.  All I know is that it is swiftly coming up on the 3 year anniversary of my mom's death and in fact, it has gotten more bearable.

It took my doctor to point out to me a pattern I had.  Every January/February I would go to him complaining of headaches that wouldn't seem to happen any other time in the year.  He would talk me out of MRIs and after a week or two they would go away.  Since that is the time when mom was first diagnosed with a brain tumor, he suggested this was mostly a psycho-somatic thing.  This year the head aches came a little later, early March, and lasted maybe a week before going on their merry way.

As the kids grow, I miss my mom more.  I wish she could see them and interact with them as they are now.  My daughter wasn't even walking when mom died, and now she is this little spitfire chock full of personality and love.  I swear the kid is the biggest snugly love bug around, always wanting to snuggle and hug.  I can envision my son reading out loud, as he loves to do, and my mom patiently being interested in the stories.

I miss being able to go to her for advice.  I have so many things I would love to seek her insight on and at times, I feel bereft with only internet searches and blog lurking to guide my way.

I am, however, getting a lot better about not being bitter.  For the longest time I would be bitter and jealous of friends and strangers alike who still had active mothers.  For many having the parents take the kids for a weekend or even a night is a routine, for me it is an impossible fantasy.  It ranks with winning the lottery in the realm of possibility.

I had coffee with a friend I don't see too often one recent night.  This woman, I have to admit, is not a close friend and I have, at times, thought of her more as a frenemy because of some of the things she has said to me in the past.  But, there we were and she was telling me about how her mother was going to take care of her toddler son and newborn baby so she could go on a weekend trip.  She also mentioned how upset she was because her grandmother, whom she is very close to, was starting to exhibit signs of aging and forgetfulness at the ripe old age of 85.  Her eyes welled with tears as she said she doesn't know what will happen when her grandmother dies because she loves her so much.

Mind you, there is a decent part of me who understands how hard it is to watch someone you love and who you are close with deteriorate and the sense or mortality that provides.  This part of me was the sensitive one who touched her hand and said all the right comforting things.  I am ashamed to say there was a lesser part of me who wanted to laugh spitefully in her face and say things like, "Poor you with the house your daddy bought you and your cool active mom who takes care of you and your kids and your grandmother who seems to be doing A-ok up to now when my only real pleasant memory of my own grandmother is her telling me I was the worst dancer at my 8 year old dance recital."

Sheesh, part of me is a real bitch.  (Insert B, "Only Part?")

In a week we are traveling to Vegas Baby to see the relatives.  B's parents now live there in a group home near B's sister and my mother's two brothers and their families live there as well.  One of my aunt/uncle pairings is super awesome with my kids.  They had stepped into a grandparent role with them and we will be staying with them.  Tonight on the phone they offered to babysit one night so B and I could go see a movie or something.  We are going to take them up on it!

Since our trip revolves around family, and we are staying with my aunt/uncle, we decided to splurge one day and rented a cabana at the Mandalay Bay casino pool area.  It is crazy expensive but we are going to spend the whole day there pretending we are somewhere super exotic and drink colorful fruity drinks poolside and swim in their variety of pools, taking breaks to lounge in our cabana in front of the TV.  The kids are besides themselves excited.

During the trip, I will be seeing my own grandmother.  She is in her 90s now and her mind is mostly gone and she has no idea her daughter is dead and has been lo these past 3 years.  I don't know how that will go but I figure I owe it to my mom to visit her mom.

But while we are there, I might as well toss a quarter in a slot machine somewhere and see about winning some money.  Who knows, stranger things have happened.  Maybe 3 will be my lucky number.

Leaning In

My friend Melissa recently wrote about women, working and feminism and it got me thinking a lot about items in the news the past couple of months.  First off, there was new Yahoo CEO Melissa Mayer who recently launched a "no work from home" policy and then there is Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's latest big seller, "Lean In, Women, Work and the Will to Lead."

I have been both a stay at home mom, albeit for 18 months with baby A, and, for most of my professional career, I have worked full time out of the home in software and internet technology companies, including Yahoo (although back in the Jerry Yang days).

As Melissa states, "I keep reading article after article about women and working, and I’m not sure what to make of it all. One side seems to think I am letting feminism down by quitting work to stay home with my kids, while the other side says feminism is all about choice, including the choice to stay home."  I must say I 100% agree with her here.  There a lot of increasingly irate voices on either side of the Mommy wars debate over staying at home vs. working and my own position is mostly, "Do what works for you and your family" as well as, "Shut the hell up haters" because if there is one thing I hate, it is some holier than thou person on any side of a debate smugly telling people who don't follow their beliefs that they are failures.

But what of when the babies are grown and in school full time, should a woman then go back to work?  Obviously, it is not my position to tell anyone what to do, circumstances vary per person and family.  I do, however, read a bunch of personal finance blogs and it is common to see comments and articles about women whose husbands either up and divorced them or died or had a lengthy and expensive illness and all of the sudden these women have to start at square one in making ends meet financially and this is concerning too.

Can a woman who hasn't worked out of the home in 20 years whose kids are now "technically adults" get alimony?  I have no idea.  The job prospects for them are probably not super high paying.  I have an aunt in her 50s who works at Subway sandwich shop full time.  She told me once she will likely work there until she has a heart attack and drops near the meat slicer.  She was kidding of course (I hope).  In her case, she stayed home with the kids, got divorced from my uncle when the kids were 18 (her decision I should add), remarried someone she had met on the internet and he didn't have as much money as she was led to believe but did have a bit of a gambling problem.

I am a big believer in insurance to cover for the slings and arrows of life.  Both B and I have hefty life and long term disability insurance.  We have a revocable trust and estate plan (ironic since we don't own an actual house yet).  What can I say, I am a planner!  Next on my list when we turn 50, long term care insurance.

But, as strong as I feel my marriage is with B, stranger things have happened.  He could decide to give me the ol' heave ho later in life. 

This brings me to my next point (I had a point?).  As I mentioned, I am a woman (middle aged at that) and a mom with a career in high tech.  This means that I basically work in an industry that mostly favors men and youth.  Don't believe me? Well, take a look at this article about diversity in Silicon Valley that I found particularly real to my experience. 

For my first position in management, I was one of 6 managers in my division and the only woman.  We had a daily meeting with the director of our department and the first 10-15 minutes would be sports talk.  Once I discovered that the director had invited every single manager to a weekend golf thing except one.  Guess who that was.  And sure, I hate golf and honestly, I hated most of these people but still, this was accepted practice.

The company I was laid off from when I was pregnant with A?  Our Cambridge, MA office had 50 employees, only 10 of us women.  Sure, it was nice having "my stall" in the ladies bathroom and all, but the cut that took me out also took out 5 other women and about 10 men leaving the office with 35 employees, only 5 women.

You might be saying, "Well that is because there aren't that many women and minorities in tech" but you'd be wrong because when a company devotes itself to ensuring diversity, then you get my current company.  Half of the employees, including senior management, are women and there is a very obvious ethnic diversity.  Our average age of our employees is 40 and most are parents so the "work at home whenever you need"policy is especially nice and not at all taken advantage of (at least to my knowledge).

This is not a scientific study by any means.  It could well turn out that my company will fail and there could be a correlation between that and the fact that we aren't almost entirely staffed by young white and Asian men who work 80 hours a week and leave all the parenting to their stay at home wives.

I can tell you that in my own personal experience, many of the men who do have kids with stay at home mom wives don't understand why you can't make a meeting from 6-8pm and I was once told that if I couldn't commit myself to a project by working through the day to 9-10pm most nights for 2 weeks then I should resign from it.

Please note, I did not say all men.  I have also met my share of male coworkers who are truly humbled and amazed by the amount of work their wives do to take care of the kids and home while they work.  I obviously gravitate to those guys as my favored work project partners.

Melissa Mayer, the CEO who has banned working from home, in my opinion, has taken a huge step backwards for working parents of both sexes.  I know some folks who don't work in tech couldn't understand the big deal of not being allowed to work from home.  My aunt, the one who works at Subway, asked me what the fuss was about.  After all, it isn't like she can make sandwiches from home for customers (well she could but....)

Most people in tech have to work odd hours.  If there are software releases, they have to be done in windows when many people won't be using the software.  For example, we do ours at 5am.  Oftentimes, to test things, it takes a certain level to get the environment ready so that testing is also often done at odd hours.  I have had to do a lot of testing after 9pm.  I do this from home.

Many people are also parents and have to work around the daycare/school schedules which require someone drop off and pick up the kids at reasonable times, not to mention take care of the kids, take them to doctor's appointments, etc.  Being able to work from home allows people to get their work done, meet company goals, but also give them time to say, put in a load of laundry between call in meetings, or make dinner for their kids while a build is being prepared for testing.

This isn't just good for parents!  I have worked with a lot of young folks with lots of energy and time to spare.  I have seen them burn completely out making their job their lives only to be laid off anyway when the economy and industry went south.  People have many interests, and the happiest most productive people I work with are the ones who get to pursue outside interests as well.

Personally, I kind of wonder if Mayer did this just to not have to provide lay off severance packages.  In this way, people will just look for new jobs on their own with companies with more progressive work from home policies.  I can tell you that being forced to work in an office the entire time would not work for me. 

So where is this going?  This long rambly post about women, work, technology, blah blah blah.  There is going to come a day, probably within the next decade, when it will be hard for me to get a job in my field because I will be too old.  It will depend on the company of course, but I don't see the industry changing out of the youth dominance because that is way of technology, it demands fresh perspective and cutting edge skills.

I am hopeful, however, that my skills can translate to a somewhat marketable job above the Subway sandwich pay scale.  I am hopeful that my resume can still make me attractive to employers because I am not going to be one of those people who can retire early and securely.  Unless I win the lottery, there are no windfalls coming my way.

Whether we get paid for our work or not, we moms do have marketable skills that need to be maintained and expanded.  I do think women should "Lean In," and that doesn't mean going for a full time position.  It could mean enhancing some interests, skills, volunteering, or whatever a woman can possibly fit in her time depending on her life.  I am not the asshole who is going to tell the mom of three kids, all with special needs, to carve out time to learn to code Java.  That lady deserves a vacation!  But, I might be the asshole who will tell a woman who has kids in high school that she might want to pursue some classes or interests that might help her if she absolutely has to go back to work.

You just never know and to me, feminism is as much about being able to take care of yourself as it is about choice.

 

 

 

 

 

Spring

I can exercise and diet but somehow can't keep up this here blog. 

Today is St Patrick's Day or, how we like to refer to it in our house, B's birthday.  Having such an auspicious day for ones birthday is more curse than blessing for him.  His whole childhood and even up to about the time we got married, was just one whole green shamrock fest with is family.  His mother, even when she couldn't physically join us, would be sure to mail up a whole heap of shamrock themed party goods for his big day.  Spoiler alert, not one drop of Irish heritage in their genetic pool.

As you can imagine, if he ever sees a green frosted cake with birthday candles on his big day, he breaks out in hives.  This is why it was sort of funny that our son thinks it is hilarious and cool that his daddy has this as his birthday.  We went to Target to look at cards and I warned him that B has never liked having a St Patrick's Day card for his birthday but still LM, who is a massive reader, could not get over one card that reads:

Outside:  I really hope you like this St Patrick's Day Card...

Inside:  Somebody farted in the store and I could only hold my breath long enough to grab this one!

He did write, "Daddy, I hope your day is special" and include a handmade green shamrock beaded bracelet which made B very happy.  We also decided to go out to breakfast at a new diner in town and it is so rare that we do such a thing, breakfasts out of the home reserved for vacation, that it was a huge treat for us all.

Birthdays are a funny thing as we get older.  When you are younger, and had a happy sort of childhood, you get some sort of party with cake, even if it is just family or a few friends over.  There are usually presents and you feel special.  As you get older and are in college and young adulthood, you sometimes throw parties or friends will take you out and sometimes get you presents.

It's so different now as middle aged adults.  Now we are happy to sleep in or go out for breakfast or for someone outside of our tiny family to remember and wish us a happy day.  There was one sad moment at breakfast where B reflected that his parents, besides not really remembering it is his birthday, probably don't even remember the names of our children.

Thankfully, Spring is almost here.  After a winter of crazy blizzards, including one that closed the schools not even 8 days ago, all the snow is melted and the sun is shining and there are hints that nice weather is around the corner. 

I have always loved Spring.  One of my favorite memories is walking home from my early morning shift at a cafe I worked at in college.  I used to have to get there at 5:30am on a weekend and not get out until close to noon.  The walk in would be cold and dark and bleak but leaving that day, the first one that felt like Spring, I remember the feel of the sun and the promise in the air and taking my coat off and soaking it all in and just grinning madly like a fool.

That to me is Spring.  I love the sunshine and the warmth with no hint of oppressive humidity and the feeling that good things are in the air. It makes me hopeful and happy, despite the fact that we are swiftly approaching the 3 year anniversary of my mother's death.

Here we are with one parent gone, and two more well on their way, and this sometimes overwhelming and suffocating sense of our own adulthood but yet, here is Spring.  Here are flowers about to bloom and sun on faces, and no need for boots and gloves and hats, and children doing well and thriving and we are happy.

Older, more world weary, but happy. 

 

Odds and Ends and Things

So that trial began basically 2 days after I was interviewed to be part of the jury.  As I said before, when I "googled the shit" out of it when I got back from the courthouse, it appeared an open and shut case.  There was just so much overwhelming evidence pointing to him murdering his girlfriend and indeed he has confessed to it and the defense is going for an insanity plea based on the kid having depression and marijuana use that summer.

Now, the one time I smoked pot I took two puffs and fell asleep so I am not the expert in mary jane usage but this whole thing makes me sad.  This guy ruined two lives, his own and that of his ex-girlfriend.  They were only 18 and it was the summer before they were both leaving for different colleges.  Chickenpig is right, it was great I wasn't picked for this trial because I would internalize it too much and indeed I have just reading about it.

How can we teach our kids that it is ok if someone breaks our hearts? That we learn different things from different relationships, especially when we are young, and that eventually we will find someone who loves us as much as we love them?

Sometimes I try to talk about things like this with my own kids - about how we learn different things from people and that some friends we meet won't necessarily be in our lives forever but then they ask me for a snack and talk about Lightening McQueen.

In other parenting news, my poor little boy had a run in with a stomach virus.  I got a call from his after school program that he had just up and barfed after seeming normal all day and when I got there to pick him up he was lying in the corner of the room with his coat covering him like a blanket and a plastic tub next to his face.  I gave him his empty backpack to hold in his lap as we drove home with instructions to use it if he felt the need to hurl.  He got upset because he liked the backpack and apparently my entreaty that I could get him a brand new Angry Birds backpack was not good enough.  He would prefer to barf on the hard to clean minivan rug.

Our home has become the bastion of bad smells of late.  First, on a work at home day, B inexplicably decided to microwave some frozen Chinese dumplings in a plastic container for a length of time that a) burned them to a crisp, b) melted the container and c) made our house feel like we were all getting lung cancer from being in it that night.

Yes, don't get me started on the microwaving plastic thing.  He said he knows he shouldn't do it but "wasn't thinking" and I am beginning to think he doesn't read all the "don't do x because it will kill you" emailed articles I send him.

So then the next night it was all vomit all the time. 

Now, as a parent, I find I can handle anything soaked in pee or poop and not even flinch.  Hell, with A peeing her bed at least 2x/week, I am adept at half asleep changing of pee soaked kiddos and bedding with my eyes closed.

But vomit?  It is a whole different experience.  The smell alone makes me worry I am going to be sick myself and there is something to the whole slimy chunky feel of it and how it gets splattered all over the place so when you think you have collected all the sheets and pillows and toys it might have hit, you put your hand down to help you balance to stand up and realize you are fingers deep in yet another puddle of it.

You know how bad it was?  It soaked through the "waterproof" mattress protector and we can't get the smell out so we have to make a special trip to Ikea tomorrow to get a new mattress.  I think my new catch phrase will be, "How sick, yo?  Mattress Replacing sick!"

He is on the mend thankfully.

One of our friends from CA is visiting with some of our friends here who live an hour away.  Today we were to go and visit but of course I cancelled for me and the kids since I didn't want to bring illness into their home as they have a baby.  I offered to send B but while I was out taking A to gymnastics they called to cancel having him come over.  This is the conversation when I got home.

B:  I have some bad news.

Me:  What happened?  Did LM throw up again?

B:  No, I got a call, they don't want me to come over because they worry I might bring illness to their home.

Me:  How is that bad news?

B:  Well, I wanted to go over and see them!

Me:  Well, it is good news for me!  No solo parenting today while you are out having fun!  Woo! Now get some laundry going (inset whip cracking gesture and sound).

In the gymnastics front, wow, it is a hard call.  On the one hand, A likes it and she likes when I watch her in class.  On the other hand, I hate watching her in class because she isn't very good at it and she doesn't follow the directions and I get annoyed that the teachers don't pay as much attention to her and help her learn the basic things the other kids seem to have covered.

I know a lot of this is my own thing.  That feeling I have of being awkward and not a graceful or natural born athlete and I want my kids to be better than me at things.  In realizing that, I bite my tongue and wave at her when she looks up to the parent window and focus my thoughts on the fact that the point of my putting her in this class was exercise and that she likes it and that is all that matters. 

As for all the changes we made, since the pediatrician warned us about her weight, they have been going well in that we are shifting how the whole family eats.  Now the kids have a sugary treat every other day (like some ice cream or cookie) and they seem ok, more curious as to if it is a sugar day or not.  I pack more fruits and veggies in their lunch bags and they come back with indication that they have been eaten.  We try to do more physical things in the house in winter, like dance around to music, when the weather outside is too dreadful to go sledding.

I guess it is so far so good.  I don't weigh the kids and I try not to let them see me weigh myself every morning. 

It still amazes me though how sugar is everywhere.  On one on her non sugar days, I discovered that at school it was someones birthday and the parents had brought in cupcakes.  On another day, I discovered that the school provided afternoon snack was "fig newtons."  Her most prized possession on Valentines Day?  A small package of gummy bears she got from a friend.  She cradled it to her cheek like a fuzzy baby chick.  It was creepy.

And speaking of Valentines Day, my daughter's school makes it a huge deal that they don't celebrate holidays other than a costume parade around Halloween.  Since LM went there one year, and A has been there going on 3 years, they had never celebrated Valentines Day so I didn't think to get Valentines for her to pass out at school.  I mean with LM's class, yes!  They even send home a list of every kid's name so no one is overlooked.

Imagine my horror upon pickup when she showed me all the cool Valentines she had gotten from every kid in her class.  That is right, we were the only ones to not give out Valentines.  I hadn't missed an email or an official communication, I checked.  It really is that every single parent other than me had decided to do this.

Luckily, A didn't seem to care.  She was thrilled with the ones she got and never once mentioned not giving any out herself.

I on the other hand felt like a chump.  I went through many major emotions from feeling like an idiot to a failure but then settled on being mad at the other parents.  Bitches! Ah, that feels good.

Just kidding (mostly). I'll be sure to buy crap for both kids to pass out next year.  Lesson learned!

 

 

 

Sorry I disapppeared again

While I was not blogging, things were happening.  For instance, see if you can spot our Prius in this picture!

We had a wee bit of a blizzard out here in Boston and because of it schools were closed for both Friday and the following Monday, with a nice little 2 hour delay on Tuesday.  There was a driving ban in our state and everything, meaning that for almost 2 days if you were not a plow or necessary vehicle and you were caught driving, there was a huge fine and even some jail time to look forward to!

Not that we could go anywhere anyway because, as it turns out, there was too much snow in our very long driveway for a plow truck so our landlord had to send two guys with snow blowers.  It was a help but I still spent about 3 hours shoveling to get the sidewalks exposed and to unearth our cars. 

I tell you, that much time is a little too much "togetherness" for our family too.  We were lucky to have only lost power for a matter of hours (my cousin lost it for 3 days), but we were all stir crazy and at each others throats in record time.  The kids fought about everything, and not just the important stuff, like what color cup they got served their milk in.

In the midst of it, I also had jury duty which was not cancelled despite 99% of schools being closed in the surrounding towns.  Plus, we had to be there at 8am and, since the highways were still being worked on, I gave myself a lot of extra time to get there, leaving the house before anyone was awake and arriving before the court doors were even unlocked.

Having never served on a jury, and my only other experience being sitting in a room in Oakland, CA for an hour before being told to go home, I had no idea what to expect.  Unfortunately, that day everyone was being considered for a murder trial jury.  I had no prior knowledge of the case, which would have made me an ideal juror, but it was going to be a month long trial so I was relieved to be excused after 6 hours of waiting around waiting for the one on one interview with the judge and lawyers.

When I got home I "Googled the shit" out of the case and am so relieved to have been excused.  The accused was 18 when he allegedly murdered his 18 year old ex-girlfriend.  According to the articles, there was a ton of incriminating evidence and it isn't so much a trial of his guilt but whether he might have been insane at the time.

It all made me so sad.  You see when the judge introduced the case in the morning, he had all the lawyers introduce themselves and even the defendant.  I thought at the time that he looked young and as he rose and faced this room of 100+ strangers, he started to cry.  I didn't know anything of the case at the time, only that this young man was being accused of murder and his crying made my heart hurt.

I don't know how it is going to be to teach our kids that relationships will come and go and that it is ok because they all teach us what we do and don't want in a life partner so when we finally meet that truly special person we will know.  That having someone break up with you is not the worst thing that can happen.  That people can go their separate ways and be happy again.

You can bet I am going to follow this trial closely with my friend, Mr Google.

In other news, the other reason I have been absent is I discovered a new favorite show on streaming Netflix.  Lost Girl is a Canadian show that got picked up in the US by Scyfy network.  It is a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Skinemax but it is awesome and I have been devouring episodes like candy. 

I told my work friend, who shares similar tastes with me, and I got some angry texts from her over the weekend.  It appears I ruined her attempts to study for her night school class because she can't stop watching the show. 

Sometimes it is nice to be a bad influence.

Now if you excuse me, I have to go watch 3-4 episodes before I go to bed.

 

If Dates had Yelp Review

B and I don't do a lot of date nights.  I think for all of 2012 we had maybe 4 the whole year.  Since we don't have the family option, date nights involve trusting and paying for a sitter.  Up until late last year, we only knew one sitter, an old pre-school teacher from LM's first daycare, and, even though she was nice and trustworthy and charged $10/hr, she didn't own a car so date night also involved a good hour of driving for us just to pick her up and drop her off.

So, towards the end of last year, I hopped onto Care.com and interviewed potential sitters who owned cars and found 2 I liked.  The one the kids love the most is of course the costlier of the two ($17/hr).  She is a retired elementary school teacher who brings toys and books with her and of course she is awesome.  We all love her and the fact that she lives close and has her own car has made it easier to commit to our goal of having one date night a month.

But, having to pay $85 to the babysitter for the privilege of leaving the kids safe at home for 5 hours doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room in the budget for the actual date.  Since B and I miss seeing movies in the movie theater, we tend to do dinner and movie dates with an emphasis on the movie and less on dinner.  For example, one night we only had about $30 for the actual "date" and the movie took 2/3 of that so the dinner part took place at a Subway sandwich shop.  Split a foot-long under fluorescent lighting?  Tres Romantic!

So I was very excited when I saw a deal come through on one of those Groupon like sites for a nearby burrito shop and movie house.  It was something like "2 burritos, 2 Mexican sodas, and 2 movie tickets" for $18.  I scooped it up!  As a bonus, the burrito joint and movie theater are about a 5 minute drive from the house. 

The problem is that there is nothing much else to do near the house.  Our suburb is not one that offers copious amounts of "night life" and even though the burritos were tasty, we had an hour to kill between finishing dinner and the movie's start time.  At first we thought we would walk around a bit but it was freezing out so I recommended a drive to a nearby CVS to read magazines and troll for cheaper movie snacks.

The combination of burrito burps, my "leaves much to be desired" night driving and parallel parking abilities, and shopping for deodorant at CVS on a "date night" made B decide to narrate the date as a bad YELP review.  It was as if it were our first date and I had taken him out on the town.  It went sort of like this:

 The choice of sad NPR like news about Syria on the radio instead of slow jam R+B grooves set the mood as she nearly plowed into a parked car trying to back into a spot on a dark side street. "I can't see!" was her excuse as I clutched the door handle desperate to flee the sounds of atrocities in the middle east and the toxic fumes of the burrito curse that she belched into my face.

CVS is an odd choice for a date but, being the adventurous sort, I went with it.  She suggested looking at magazines but instead spend 15 minutes reading the labels on deodorant bottles saying she did not want one with anti-persperant but was tired of the 'cole slaw smell' her pits had from the straight deoderants.  I entertained myself by making fun of the celebrity perfumes nearby. Antonio Banderas has a cologne out? 

Later, as we were crushed into a mass of waiting moviegoers in the small lobby of the one roomed local movie theater, he continued to narrate.

She took me to a small mom and pop movie theater run by idiots.  There crushed against the popcorn machine as we waited to be let into the movie that was supposed to start 10 minutes ago she asked me to hold her coffee so she could update Facebook.  I give this date 0 stars.

FYI, we saw the Silver Linings Playbook which I cannot recommend high enough.  It was SO GOOD and we both loved it and it elevated our date from 0 stars up to maybe 5.

I do love how we change over time.  B was right, had this been a first date there would never have been another one but of course I like to think that I would have had sense not to drag a first date to CVS and shop for deodorant.  Also, if you can't kill an hour on a first date with idle chatter, than you have no sense following it with a second date.  But, I do have to admit, it was a little sad for a date night. 

So far our best date night in the past few months was the night in early December when we roamed around a popular area in Boston, including a city mall, and found this weird small fancy chocolate and tea store where we spend crazy amounts of money on funky chocolates, including one that was "Mesquite BBQ potato chip" flavored that was very surprisingly super tasty!

Sometimes the best dates are the more spontaneous ones but still, since we don't get out much, even the worst YELP reviewed date with B can still make me laugh until I cry.  I married a funny one.

The Face of Neglect

Here is the face of neglect:

You might not realize she is neglected.  We didn't know either since we lavish her with love and attention and she is oftentimes found in our laps giving and receiving hugs galore.  But, as it turns out, she has been the victim of parental neglect.

This all came to light a week ago when she had her annual checkup with the pediatrician.  I wasn't there, B had taken her since I had taken LM the week before to his annual and a few days before, I had taken time off of work to bring them both to see the dentist. 

Our baby is overweight, as in "fear child obesity" levels of overweight.  She is in the 90th % for weight to height ratio and we were read the riot act.  No juice, no chocolate milk, less sugary snacks, and make sure she gets a good hour of exercise a day and don't depend on daycare for providing it!

I am watching The Biggest Loser this season mainly because my beloved Jillian Michaels is back on it (please don't criticize her, as I have told B, I have an excellent sense of humor about many things but not MY Jillian).  This season they are focusing on childhood obesity and they have 3 kids who are more tweens/teens on the show.  In one episode, they made a point that most parents of obese and overweight kids think their kid is normal weight or even underweight.  Guilty!

I look at my daughter and see nothing but beauty and love.  Sure she has a chubby round face, but I always did too.  I considered it genetics.  But I also have much less desirable genes too and they are hitting her young.

Now, coming from a fat childhood, I had some ideas of how not to handle things.  For starters, my parents banned sugary snacks from the house so what did my brother and I do?  We stole coins from the coin jar in my parent's room, saved up, bought bargain bags of candy at the drugstore on the corner near our bus stop and gobbled hand fulls of it on our walk from bus to home, hiding the evidence deep in the trash when we got in the house.

The other extreme was my doing something called Diet Workshop with my mother as young as 9.  Now to be honest, I have great memories of that as time spent with my mom doing something together.  But, I also have memories of these nasty chemical laden "diet foods" and liters of diet soda which I still think may have played a hand in my mom's cancer.

It was hard deciding what to do and I am sure we will change as we go.  It is all complicated by the fact that we have to go through extremes to keep weight on LM.  His ADHD medicine makes him not want to eat during the day so he eats a large dinner and then has to have a calorie laden "bed time snack" about an hour before he sleeps.  This, mind you, is also doctor's orders.

Since the kids have a very ingrained sense of what is and is not fair, you can be sure A has made it known that she too must have a night-time snack and some nights we indulge her and give her a smaller portion of what he is having.  It is typically wheat crackers with peanut butter and jelly on it and a banana or a bowl of cereal and milk, that sort of thing.

Balancing the needs of the "needs to eat more" kid with "needs to eat less" one has been rough.  We tossed out all the juice and chocolate powder and went from having one sugary thing a day to one every other day.  This has been met by some resistance but so far so good.  They seem to understand that sugar is not good for their bodies and is something they can have, just not every day.  I have started packing more fruits and veggies in their lunch boxes, and nighttime snacks for A are now relegated to a few times a week instead of every night.

But exercise, well that is another story.  This is where being a full time work out of the home parent is a real detriment.  If she is not getting exercise at school (although I think she is because they do a lot of physical activities with the kids), just how am I supposed to make sure she gets an hour a day in the few hours I get her in the evening?  They are starving when I pick them up, and after LM's homework is done it is pretty much bath, books, and bed.

Here is a little pet peeve of mine.  As I have confessed earlier, I am bad with money.  As such, we are focused on the following:  paying the bills, paying off the credit card debt, and saving for a house down payment.  Some things have suffered in this, and one of those is extracurriculars for the kids.  I would love to be one of those parents who have their kids in a sport, learning a language, and playing an instrument but (spoiler alert!) I'm not.

I even threw a tiny bit of a tantrum because I already pay for a weekly dance class at A's school and their only other offering is Spanish class which costs $150 for 3 months.  I had declined it thinking that it was a lot of money for a 3 year old to learn Spanish for half an hour a week.  I considered it the equivalent  of watching Dora the Explorer which she can do for free! (Please note, I am not intending to be a racist asshole, I am just saying if a 3 year old gets exposed to a few songs in Spanish for a tiny bit of time once a week, is it really worth $150?  Is she really going to learn anything that way?  Discuss!)

Anyway, you know what happened?  She was the only kid in her class NOT in Spanish which meant that every week when the Spanish teacher came, A was escorted downstairs to play with the younger kids while all her friends stayed behind.  Guess who cried because of that?  Guess who had to pony up $150 so her daughter could learn to count to 10 in Spanish?

It is winter here.  It hasn't snowed enough to make sledding a regular thing and it has been arctic cold. This makes staying home all day very inviting on the weekends and has not been conducive to providing the kids with the hour a day of exercise they need.  This means I have to either enroll them in a gym class or pay to take them to one of those inside ball pit bouncy house germ factories every weekend.

Unfortunately since it is winter, and people can't go out, all the other parents who aren't neglectful, have already filled all the weekend spots in the classes.  I must have called 20 places (mostly dance and gymnastics) before I found a class with one spot left for her age group.  Today was her first gymnastics class and don't you know that she bitched about it the whole way there and I had to bribe her with TV to get her to try it but after one class, she is hooked!

Sadly, so is her brother and there aren't any spots for his age range anywhere until March.  He is angry, my friends, angry!  It is that fairness thing again. 

Anyway, please let me know if you have any suggestions on how I can best deal with this situation.  How would you suggest we go about it with one kid who needs to gain weight, and one who needs to lose it?

 

 

Attempting to be more Neighborly

Right after I completed that last post, I got straight to baking and made these insanely decadent chocolate walnut brownies.  It was maybe 7:30am when I announced to the kids what I was doing and from then on in, they were fixated on some fairy tale world where they are allowed to eat brownies for breakfast while draped over the couch watching cartoons.

"Where are the brownies?  Why is taking soooo looooong?" My daughter whined.  "They are in the oven baking and then they have to cool down before we can touch them, let alone eat one."  I tried to explain.  I swiftly followed with, "But you haven't even had breakfast yet so this isn't even a problem.  How about some eggs?"

Needless to say, by 10am, B had delivered a very prettily arrayed platter of brownies and the good looking survivors of his cookies to the family next door.  I had included a nice card for the boy.  I felt all neighborly.

Then it was time to get ready because I had been invited to a high tea birthday party for a work friend of mine.  It was at a swanky place in Boston and this is also where I learned that if they serve alcohol, any establishment in Boston, no matter how posh, is obligated to have a wide screen TV turned onto a sporting event.  It really was discordant to see chandeliers and individual pots of tea combined with baseball in the background but that's Boston for you I guess.

In my quest to be more sociable, I am practicing the art of asking people more questions about themselves.  It is a time honored tactic in business and life to just let people talk about themselves while being interested (and if not, feigning being interested).  I do this pretty well with my friends and work colleagues (being really interested that is) but not so great in the little interactions. 

There is a new door monitor at my son's school for the extended day program.  The old monitor was this young outgoing college kid who seemed to remember everyone's name and I genuinely liked her.  She left to get her first real job so the door was open for someone new.  I decided to try out being social with her.  Then it went horribly awry.

You know how if you ask someone if they had a nice weekend or if they are having a good day and they say yes or no and add a few details but keep it pretty light?  Not so much this lady.

I have to describe her so you can properly envision this.  She is a slim short haired  lady who looks to be about 40.  She wears very trendy clothing, such as Jeggings and I want her to teach me how to use makeup because hers is immaculate.  She has a warm friendly smile and demeanor and is originally from the UK so she has a lovely accent.

Here are two conversations that happened, the first on a Friday, the second on the following Monday.

Friday:

Me:  Hi, how are you?  Any big plans for the weekend?

Her:  Oh yes, I am going to go dancing with some friends of mine!  They are much younger than me, in their 20s!  But I love to go dancing and I am quite good at it.  I do the hair, the makeup, put on the short skirts and the heels and just keep on dancing while drinking lots of water.  Of course I have to pee a lot but it keeps me dancing all night!

Me: That sounds like fun, where are you going to go? (I don't actually know of any clubs since I think the last time I went dancing at a club was a decade ago but I was trying to use open ended questions).

Her:  Oh well I am not sure, last time we went to Howl at the Moon and all these handsome young men came over to dance with me and after grinding against me I had to tell them they had made my day because I am 61 years old. I told them that they just danced with "Granny" and they ran off and I laughed.

Me:  Wow, you look fabulous!  I would never think you are older than 40!  (At this point, I am starting to walk to the stairs to go up and look for Liam, other people are now coming in and waiting for her, looks like a good time to exit but no, she follows me halfway up the stairs!)

Her:  I believe in making each and every day count in life.  I wake up in the morning and give thanks for everything.  I find things to be grateful for like if a child gives me anything, even a scribble I just gush thanks all over them....

At this point, I smiled and said something about that is a great attitude and used the fact that other people were milling around her trying to get her attention as my springboard to leave and get my son.

The following Monday:

Me:  Hi, how was dancing?

Her:  Oh so fun!  I decided that since my kids are grown, I retired from teaching, I look fabulous so I have decided this year I am going to get myself a hot little boy toy because these are the times of the Cougars!

Me:  (laughing a little awkwardly) Well, why not, right?

Her:  Yes, I believe in making each and every day count in life.  I wake up in the morning and give thanks for everything....

She launched into another version of this spiel.

You know what I forget?  I forget that sometimes when you open up and try to be social, you open the door to people who sort of make you not want to be social anymore.

I was relaying these conversations to B and he said, "Doesn't she know this is New England where people don't talk to each other!"  I laughed and said, "I know, the only reason I could stomach half of it is because I lived in California for 10 years!"  It was a joke people.

Another incident in my quest to be more social occurred this past Sunday.  I got up and was at the grocery store at 8am while B and the kids stayed home watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in their PJs.  As I pulled into my driveway, car full of bags, my cell phone rang. It was the father of one of the girls in A's daycare room.  I had met him just once.  He called to see if we wanted to do a playdate that day.  I said yes and then he gave me the details.

Turns out he and his wife were recovering from the flu.  They were both in Tamiflu and not had any symptoms for 48 hours.  Their daughters, who had not had the flu, were going stir crazy so they were trying to line up some play dates.  I offered to have their daughter come to our house and he said, "Great, I'll drop her off in 45 minutes."

Now I am not the best for thinking on my feet in the moment but I knew 45 minutes was a stretch so I let him know we were still in PJs, hadn't had breakfast yet, etc and he was fine with it.

Sure enough, he drops her off and as he is walking out the door calls over his shoulder that he will come and get her at 2pm.

Four hours later.  A 4 hour play date.

Now, yes there are some things the kids can do on their own to play together and not need us to chaperone or cruise direct but those things were short lived.  For 4.5 hours (because of course he was 30 minutes late), B and I led games, did crafts, and all but offered a magic show to keep them entertained.

We haven't had many play dates that involve the parent just dropping off a kid.  I would say this is our second one ever.  I had no real frame of reference but I suspected this was extreme.  Sure enough, Chickenpig let me know via FaceBook that what we just experienced was not in fact a play date but rather "babysitting."

After they left, B and I were both so exhausted we turned the TV on for the kids and laid down for a bit.

Being neighborly is exhausting!!!

Bad Neighbors

I used to be a really social person.  I used to organize gatherings and have parties and hang out at cafes talking with various friends.  It all seems like a million years ago but I do remember a time I sought out people and enjoyed the fruits of their company.

This all changed after having my son.  It isn't like I went from having friends to not, it was more like I was so overwhelmed with the responsibilities of parenthood and the swift kick in the pants it means to not have any freedom because there is this tiny person depending on you.  I just didn't have time anymore, nor did I know how to navigate the social world I had known with this baby in tow. 

I managed somewhat thanks to all the friendships I had developed prior to LM rocking my world but then we moved cross country and I had to start anew.

We have lived in MA now for almost 6 years (Whhhhhatt??  How did that time go by so fast?).  In the past couple of years I have hit my stride in developing closer friendships here.  It took a while because I was different.  I wasn't the social butterfly of my past self, I was an overwhelmed mom with issues and I found it harder to put myself out there and to do the work of being social.  Talk on the phone?  Yuck!  Have people over?  My house is always a mess and what will I feed them?  Then there is the fact that we still live in a smallish rental apartment when 90% of people we know have large nice homes.  I sometimes am self conscious with people who haven't come over yet.

Plus, I don't necessarily feel the gift of the gab anymore.  I am happy that I have managed to make the few close girlfriends that I have now, even though I still feel like I can't open up to them the way I can still talk to some of my close friends from CA.

Anyway, where this is going is that it recently dawned on me that we are really bad neighbors.

We live on a smallish street and when we first moved here, we were so excited by all the families with small kids that we helped organize a first block party.  We would hang out on the lawns with other neighbors and watch the kids play.  We even had the family next door over for dinner and B spent a huge amount of time and a small fortune making a goat cheese cake with toasted pine nut crust for dessert.

We also got invited to the annual spring tea party and Christmas open house of a very old woman who has lived here for over 60 years and who still walks her dog around every day.

We don't get invited any more (we see the encelopes slipped through our mail slot for our upstairs neighbor only) and the summer outings have dried up because half the families with kids moved.  We could invite the family next door over, but we just haven't.

We just don't put in the effort anymore.  Between working full time and parenting and trying to slip in things like physical health and cleaning the house and helping with homework, there just never seems like time to keep up these relationships.

And so it came to be that one recent winter weekend afternoon I took the kids outside our house to let them blow off some steam and play in the snow.  My upstairs neighbor came out with her daughter and we talked some.  I learned that the teenage son of the family next door (the ones we had to dinner) was in the hospital having brain surgery and that the old man who lives across the way had died....3 months ago.  I knew none of this.

Bad neighbors.

I did get in contact with the neighbor, it was a cyst on the brain and their son is doing fine, back home even.  When he first came home I knew it because I saw people live park their cars carrying casseroles and plates of food.

And so we determined, "This is what we will do!  We will make cookies!"

Here is a little peek into how things work around here.  Our intentions were very good.  Our execution, horrible.

He came from from the hospital Tuesday night.  B went to the store to buy ingredients Tuesday night with the intention to make cookies Wednesday night.  Wednesday night we discovered we forgot brown sugar, off to the store.  Thursday night he made the cookies but the recipe he chose to make (that involved things like melted caramels, etc) spread out too thin as it baked and 1/2 burnt and in the end we had maybe 10 good looking cookies.

Friday, nothing - we forgot to make more things or bring over the few good looking cookies.

So now the kid has been home for a while and we still haven't done anything (that they know of).  I am going to make some bar cookies this morning and carry them over late afternoon after having the kids make a get well card.

This year I resolve to be more social and to be a better neighbor.  I am starting by trying to accept more invitations (going to a high tea birthday party today for a work friend!) and to make some invitations of my own.  It is time to get out my old social queen hat, dust it off and see if it still works.

It is really hard trying to balance work/kids/exercise and the fact that most nights I want to fall asleep by 9:30pm with anything else but I have to try.

I don't want to be the bad neighbor anymore.