piecrust promises

Experiment #2974. Result: FAIL.

Somewhere far away or maybe real nearby, there is a little blonde girl with deep blue eyes who has spent her day quietly flipping through picture books, building grand towers out of a variety of responsibly forested wooden blocks, skillfully shimmying into a variety of organic cotton dress up clothes, and artfully drawing on recycled paper.  Her mother has been diligently chipping away at an important work project at the dining room table, pausing periodically to commend her lovely daughter's behavior, fashion sense, and environmental responsibility.  The evil television has been silent all day and a feeling of accomplishment pervades the house.  A husband comes home in good spirits, kisses his wife and tousles his child's hair.  He is pleased that the house is in order and that the savory scents of dinner are already wafting toward his nose.

I'm sure that somewhere this exact scenario is playing out as the day draws to a close.

Too bad it isn't in this house.

Today I attempted my latest ridiculous fantasy brilliant idea. It didn't go as well as I had hoped...it didn't go as badly as I imagined it could either...but still.  Every single toy Amelia owns is scattered throughout the entire first floor of the house.  An entire pack of wipes has been pulled from the box and each individual wipe has been either crumpled into a ball or used as a blanket for a variety of stuffed creatures.  A 94 pack of crayons has been evenly distributed between the couch cushions. Two banana peels, three sippy cups, an empty candy bar wrapper, an entire set of measuring scoops, and two boxes of spaghetti are currently housed in the bathroom trash can. At least the TV was only on for two Blue's Clues, one Franklin, three Lazy Towns, and an entire Go Diego Go DVD a little while.  Let's not even talk about the number of dishes in the sink or the number of crusty spots on Amelia's clothes.

However, I did get some work done...perhaps not as much as I would have liked to...but I certainly didn't get to spend as much quality time with Amelia as I had wanted to either.  I feel like I spent the majority of the day chasing her away from swishing stuff in the toilet, prying things out of her mouth, stopping the dogs from humping each other, and reminding myself that yelling does nothing to help control the noise level.

So I'm going to have to say that my work at home experiment was a failure.  Perhaps it would work if I had only light work to do that I could do for a while and then put on hold for some playtime...but not when I'm trying to muscle through a big project with a deadline that requires me to do things like concentrate or finish a sentence.  So in short, never...this idea will never work.

Especially not after today...while I was wrangling a baby and cursing about having the Go Diego Go theme song stuck in my head (Deep inside the jungle where nature's running wild, mumble, mumble, mumble, swinging from a vine, mumble, mumble, working overtime! DEEEAAAAGOOOO!)...my coworkers were getting laid off one by one. While I got several emails saying how nice it must have been to be away from all the chaos at work today...it couldn't be further from the truth. As much as I love my family, I actually spend far more time with my coworkers than I do with my husband and child.  And there were people that I have come to respect and cherish as great people to work with...but also as a sort of cobbled together family...complete with feuds and drama and a lot of laugher...having their lives turned upside down because of a crappy economy.  I felt horrible when I got the first phone call to let me know what was happening.  The first emotion was fear for my own future, followed by relief that I was spared this round, and then a pit of the stomach nausea over the fact that I would most likely never see some of these people again.  I wouldn't have a chance for a proper goodbye...that the fabric of my daily routine had been shredded and picked over.

My workday won't have the same flow of small talk and chitchat over kids and weather and primetime television.  I won't be able to say, "Oh so-and-so will be able to answer that" because they aren't there anymore.  It feels like there has been some sort of horrible accident...and the death toll keeps getting longer and louder.  Work will never be the same...and I can't even imagine what my former coworkers are feeling tonight.  Lost?  Betrayed?  Hopeless?

I wish the very best for each and every one of them.  I hope they find a new place to call their own...with new challenges and new coworkers to love and hate. Tonight, I'm not only mourning the fact that this whole work at home idea isn't going to be the answer to my whole I-feel-like-I-can't-breathe-being-away-from-Amelia problem...but also for the hardships and stress being felt by families all over Central Florida.

Here's to new opportunities and to enjoying the time that I do have with Amelia.  

And if it makes anyone feel better...here's proof of what an idiot I am...because what sane, rational person would think that finger painting (FINGER PAINTING + TODDLER) (HA!) was a nice, easy, relaxing activity to wrap up the day.

Break it down.

So I'm in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner and Amelia is out in the living room watching CNN with Joel. (The kid likes the scrolling tickers.  "WOOSSHH.  FASS PAPA! FASS! PITY! ME CACH!")  (That's "fast" and "pretty" and "catch" for those not fluent in toddler. Then she makes grabbing motions at the TV with her chubby little fists, shrieking with laughter...it's cute the first eleven times...and then you just want to yell, "Hey! Down in front!")  All of the sudden she gets really quiet and I turn to see what has caught her attention.  

And there is my child, staring open mouthed at our 44th President.  I come over wiping my hands on a towel, filled with awe that my child, who isn't even 2, can feel the power and hope radiating from this man. I lean down, thinking how adorable it will be if I can get her to say, "president" or "Obama" or "the second coming of Jesus."

She turns and looks at me with a goofy grin and says, "DEE JAA LANCE WOCKS."

NICE.

Hey! Jealousy!

So I think I've come up with my craziest idea ever...I'm thinking about trying to work at home with the baby twice a week.

Yeah.  Do actual work.  At home.  With an almost 2 year old who *might* be the Antichrist.

Now, I'm a firm believer that every mother "works" who stays home...but this is a bit different.  This is dealing with graphics! and websites! and maps! and things that people can only explain to me by using big! arm! movements! and things that need to get done now.

Then I started thinking about how great it would be to not have to wear pants all day and how I could very easily be 600 pounds and have my skin permanently graft to the couch from lack of movement with this setup.

And then I started thinking about money.  And I don't know about you...but I don't have any. But I could have some more if I didn't have to drive an hour each way to work...and I'd have some more if we could cut our daycare costs.

So out of curiosity I ran the numbers and figured that I could possibly save $300ish a month. Nothing to sneeze at there.  And if that means that I get to cut out 4 hours of sitting in traffic every week AND having to wear pants...plus I get to spend some more time with my own personal slave driver wonderful child, then I'm even more all for it.

 

But there is an even bigger reason for this whole crazy idea...jealousy with a side order of guilt and frustration. Recently, a dearly loved coworker (Hi Jane! Yes, I'm talking about you! Stop blushing...no one else who reads this knows who in the hell you are.) came back from maternity leave.  And while I was thrilled to bits to have my buddy back...I was surprised by a sudden surge of...something. And I couldn't quite get a hold of what this something was...I just knew that it was a dark and ugly something.  Something a shade of non-eco friendly green...jealousy. Jane is now working part-time.  Part-time...ahh...it just sounds magical. She also took a longer maternity leave than I did.  Mine was just 8 weeks. 8 short weeks...most of which I spent a sobbing mess dealing with a lovely case of postpartum.  And then after the money had really run out, I went back to work full time.  There didn't seem to be any other option...it STILL doesn't seem like there are any other options.  It feels like I squandered away those precious first weeks.

 

And then the guilt that has always been there bubbled up to the surface.  Perfect strangers have taken care of my child, day after day since she was 8 weeks old.  They spend more time with her than I do...everyday they have a full 8 hours of Amelia sunshine...and I get the leftover 4 hours of an overly tired, cranky, hungry, and generally grumpy toddler who just wants to go back to that place with all the songs and toys and craft supplies and cheery grandma types who call her "sugar"...and who can blame her?  Those 4 hours at home aren't even spent focusing on her...there is dinner to make, dogs to walk, a house to clean, a husband to tend to, a zombie mama who just wants to watch Top Chef...how do people do this?  I suck at this.    

 

At 2 years old...I'm already excluded from my daughter's life.  I have no idea what she does all day...this is something I was expecting to happen when she turned 13...not 2.  Yes, I know the daycare schedule by heart...I look at the clock on my computer at work and think, 9:15AM...I wonder what Amelia is making out of construction paper today, 11:45AM...Amelia must be sitting down to eat lunch now, 12:30PM...I hope someone remembered to give her the green blanket with polka dots for nap time, 2:30PM...I wonder what she's having for snack?  And on and on and on.  I know the mechanics...I just don't know the specifics.  Did she do something funny?  Did she learn something new? Did she get hurt?  Did she choose a new life ambition?  Did she learn how to drive? Is she dating? Did she smear paste all over herself and do some interpretive dance?

 

I have to do better than this.  I feel like I've already missed out on so much...insert whole "life's short" cliche here.

But here's the catch...can I actually do this?  There are several problems with the work at home scenario...the largest being how to actually get work done while interacting with a toddler...this isn't a good situation if the TV ends up babysitting all day.

 

Then there is the whole the-economy-sucks-and-I'm-lucky-to-still-have-a-job-at-all-and-if-I-start-working-at-home-people-are-going-to-assume-that-I'm-sitting-around-eating-bonbons-and-watching-Maury situation. (Is Maury even on still?  I mean really, how many more people out there need to figure out which of the 37 thugs is the daddy?)

So I'm going to be doing a test run this week...before I go spouting off to someone about my whole new child friendly, earth friendly, wallet friendly, oh yeah and totally work friendly idea here.  What a concept...me TRYING something BEFORE spouting off about it.  Ha!  

Wait a minute...this blog post doesn't count as spouting off first right?

Riiiiggght.

It's Official: I'm My Mother.

So my mother and I have, what you might like to call, a so so relationship.  We've mostly gotten over that span of about six years when I did a lot of drugs that she didn't know about my rebellious teenage years. She hasn't accepted my lack of the Catholic religion...but she's dealing with it. (Or at least she's stopped openly talking about the baby spending eternity in purgatory and me burning in hell.) (I once had a nun explain purgatory to me like this....it's like having all the pancakes you could ever want, but with no syrup. The pancakes are still good...but not quite what you wanted.) (This is why I am so fucked up...my formative years were spent with a bunch of loonies comparing eternity to breakfast foods.) (Side note...Hey JD! Sister Myra told me that...remember her?) (Moving on.)

My mother and I have a once-a-week, 15 minute max, standing phone call.  It's like taking off a bandaid...you don't want to make the call but you know you have to...and then you do it as fast as possible with the biggest grimace on your face...but you keep saying out loud that it's no big deal.  So these phone calls generally consist of filler...like what she watched on TV that week, which one of my wonderful full members of the Catholic church elementary school classmates she saw in the Safeway, what the baby has been doing (with mumblings suggesting that maybe the kid wouldn't climb the bookshelves or keep stealing the remote if she had a bit more of the Lord in her), etc.  This past week she was talking about something that she heard on the radio...something that she heard on MIX 107.3 to be exact.  This is a station that I know well...non-offensive Top 40's with a little bit of cleaned up pop from the 70's, 80's, 90's, and today!  It was all I was ever allowed to listen to when I was a kid.  It's the quintessential Mom station.  And it's the type of station that I've been avoiding for years...heaven forbid my dial land on that sort of station!  Oh the embarrassment!  Or so I thought...

So I'm driving in the car this morning...and I'm listening to the morning show that is a blend of some music, some talk, some news, some contests...and then I hear it.  "You're listening to MIX 105.1!"  I'm listening to a mix station.  I'M LISTENING TO THE FLORIDA EQUIVALENT OF MY MOTHER'S RADIO STATION...FOR WEEKS! And I never noticed.  There I was every morning...laughing along with freaking Scott and Erica!  Playing along to the $25 Pyramid!  Yelling about how Florida is full of idiots...obviously the category is "Alternative Names for Wombat Dung!"  Singing along to Leona Lewis (KEEP BLEEDING! KEEP KEEP BLEEDING!) and fucking Daughtry.  DAUGHTRY...as in AN AMERICAN IDOL WINNER! WHY DO I EVEN KNOW THAT!? And the entire time...my sweet, innocent, naive child sitting in the backseat...dancing and clapping when they play the pick-me-up song of the morning...laughing at mama yelling at the voices.

When did I become a pre-menopausal woman?  I don't even consider myself to be a woman yet...I refer to myself as being a girl...not a woman.  Women are old and wrinkly and serious and listen to mix stations.

Now I've been struggling with this whole age thing for a while...but this seems like the beginning of the end.

And then this lead me to another line of thought...everyone has a musical expiration date...a time when you stop keeping up with current music and you just stop liking anything new.  New music sounds like noise..."those damn kids don't know what good music!" is you say...and you mean it.

I think I've hit this time period.  I used to listen to all sorts of music...now I just want to hear things from 1994. I've been trying to pinpoint when my musical preferences stopped evolving...luckily iTunes is good at helping out with this sort of thing. 2002. 2002 was the end for me. I pretty much stopped adding in anything new in 2002. I was only 21. I peaked musically at 21.

How soon before I peak at everything else?

So tell me...have you reached your musical peak?

The Spaghetti Incident?

Amelia has been charged with a crime...a very serious felony charge.  Meatball murder.  I don't know why they think she's guilty...what evidence do they have that such a sweet, endearing child could commit such a heinous crime?!

Oh...that evidence.

And on a somewhat separate news story...I am simply delighted that people searching for Guns N' Roses' fifth (and worst) album (sorry! It's a cover album people...COVER ALBUM!  COVERS OF CRAPPY SONGS FROM GLAM ROCK!  GLAM ROCK PEOPLE!) will stumble upon a meatball murderer. (Allegedly!) But at the same time...her Mama is now worried that the two readers will think she's some sort of Guns N' Roses superfan...and that simply isn't true. I promise!

And no...there isn't going to be a Monday Night Confession about me lurving freaking GNR...it was a clever title!  Get over it!  Geesh...maybe you should stop obsessing over it and help me clean up this baby.

(Incidentally...she got a hold of the dogs right after this picture was taken...I think she was trying to frame them as accomplices.  Just saying...)

I swear...

...she got in the dog cage all by herself, shut the door all by herself, and then proceeded to have an entire conversation with her baby...which may or may not have been about how Mama and Papa keep calling each other bleeders.

Thirty (THIRTY!) minutes later she emerged...only to have another very animated conversation with her baby...which may or may not have been about how if there is a Britney reality show she will so totally have to watch every second of that train wreck.

She then turned her attention on getting her baby up to speed on some serious gross motor skills...why isn't that baby walking already?! Lord knows Mama's Amelia's got the video camera in standby mode every second of the day waiting for the blessed moment.

Geesh...get on with it already...Mama Amelia has been patiently waiting for the moment where she doesn't have to carry her ridiculously heavy baby everywhere.

Seriously...the kid weighs 28 pounds. The baby doll is practically weightless...so Amelia really doesn't have much to complain about. Unless she wants to gripe about all of the pinching Mama does to those yummy tubby legs...but who can blame me?

Goodbye Dignity.

So I knew that when I became a mother I'd be giving up a lot of my former rock and roll life. I had no clue how far that would go...

You know you are a mom when you can successfully take a shit with 1) the bathroom door wide open, 2) a one year old alternating between playing the drums on the trash can and squealing with delight with every tug of the toilet paper roll, 3) one dog barking and running in circles around your legs, 4) and another dog trying to sit on your lap.

The best part is when you don't even flinch when your husband comes in and starts asking you about where to find the hidden rolls of blue painters tape.

Sigh.

Down with the sickness...

So I am sick. Again. Since Amelia was born, I've had five ear infections, countless runny noses, three upper respiratory infections, and a nasty two day stomach virus that made me experience one of my biggest fears (vomiting) multiple times. (Vomiting is just wrong. It's your body defying the laws of GRAVITY. Listen here vomit...gravity is the law for a REASON.)

I've basically become the destination for busy viruses and infections looking to get away from it all. The baby is obviously selling timeshare property in my upper respiratory track. And all these viruses are telling their friends and bringing their Aunt Mabel and their cousin Howard on these visits, because I am SICK ALL THE TIME.

There is only one upside to all of this sickness...Dr. V. at the walk-in clinic in Clermont. Now this particular walk-in is totally out of the way for me to go to...but the one closest to me is ghett-o. So take my advice women of Central Florida...go to the Clermont Centra-Care. It's totally worth the trip...hell...I might be feeling down enough to mosey on over there today...

Oh Dr. V...if only we didn't have to meet with mucus acting as a chaperone. Sigh.

Even Joel agrees that he might just be the dreamiest doctor he has ever been to.

I don't know exactly what it is about Dr. V. Maybe it's because he let me sob all over him when I was pregnant and had the flu and he wouldn't prescribe me anything because of the slightest chance of harm to the baby. Or maybe it's because he actually looks at you when you are talking...even when you've got pink eye and have all sorts of goopy shit on your face. Or perhaps it's just because he's so tall and handsome. Who knows...my fantasy dreamland doesn't need to be rational.

So at my last visit that was fueled by an abundance of mucus (I wrote and rewrote that line at least four times...trust me here...there is no good way to talk about snot)...I finally got up the courage to do something I almost never do...ask for help.

And here comes the confession. I'm a (wait for it...wait for it...) smoker.

Since the age of 16 I've chugged down at least half a pack a day of Marlboro Menthol Milds...and then after I had the baby...I slowly returned to being a half a pack a day smoker. Somebody call the bad mother line...we've got a live one. I don't know what it was...getting to have a ten minute break away was what I needed...and before I knew it...I had a habit again.

So I asked my beloved Dr. V. about what my options were...I'd already tried the patch, the gum, my own crappy willpower...I was ready to turn to the sweet world of pharmaceuticals.

That was when Dr. V. informed me that I would need to speak to my primary care doctor about that. What? But Dr. V....you are my primary doctor...hell...you're my only doctor!

And this was when Dr. V. and I broke up...if he couldn't see how hard this was for me...well then I just didn't think we could make it. And just like that...my doctor fantasy went poof. (Well...mostly...I am the forgiving type you know...next time I've got more boogies than I know what to do with...Dr. V. and I might have a little rebound action.)

So now I'm off on my quest to find a primary care physician! Know any good ones in the Orlando area? I especially like the ones who never have cold hands...and ones who don't keep you waiting for forever...and if they happen to give out lollipops that's a plus too. Not that I'm picky or anything.

Meet the Players - Amelia

Can the internet love a child that they haven't known since 2 minutes after conception? Guess we'll find out.

When I got pregnant, I searched for my online-due-around-the-same-time-we-can-go-through-this-together buddy. I picked the mightiest of buddies...Mighty Girl Maggie over at Mighty Girl. She never knew it...but she was my support system through the whole pregnant-I'm-gonna-throw-up-now-oh-is-that-corn-on-the-cob-yum-yum-yum ordeal. Her sweetie Hank was born just a few days before my Miss Amelia...and just knowing that she got through labor alive was enough reassurance for me. Who knows...maybe one day Hank and Amelia will toddle off into the sunset together...although I'm not sure if Amelia has enough hair for him yet.

What can I say about Amelia? About motherhood? About how this baby has changed everything? Considering the fact that I discovered I was pregnant the same day that the hubby and I were supposed to sit down and finally do divorce papers...yeah...life changing might be an alright way of describing Amelia. It was like somebody out in the universe smacked both us in the face and said, "Grow the fuck up. Here's a baby! Ha ha. Now go work shit out." That morning plays back in my head like some kind of bad laugh track sitcom. I woke up, walked into the bathroom and peed on a stick...for no particular reason whatsoever. I wasn't late. I wasn't feeling weird. I just decided that TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO PEE ON A STICK. Two pink lines appeared instantly. (CANNED LAUGHTER) I walked calmly into the living room, where Joel was sleeping on the couch (yeah we were at that stage of hating each other), I calmly stated, "Joel, please wake up. I'm pregnant." His response? "Very funny. You did an excellent job of drawing those lines perfectly straight...you're still not getting the dogs." (CANNED LAUGHTER)

And so it was...and suddenly a marriage that was teetering right on the brink was yanked back over the side by a fetus the size of a grain of rice. We're by no means perfect...and we still have the I-hate-you-no-I-hate-you-more-let's-get-a-divorce conversation every now and again. But we never do. We can't. We're just too damn perfect for each other. And besides...we both know that no one else will ever put up with our shit. But now we have some common ground...and a common enemy. The baby.

And now back to said baby. Amelia turns a year old today. A whole year. But how can that be? It was only yesterday that Joel and I brought her home, wrapped her up tight, put her in her Ikea crib, and asked each other at the exact same time, "What the hell do we do with her now?"

I don't really remember much of those first few hazy months...but I assume that we must have done something right because here she is...a whole year later...all limbs still firmly attached and 8-9-Yes-10 fingers and toes exactly where they should be. She's turned from this little wiggly bundle with an Academy Award range of scrunched up faces to this opinionated speedster on all fours. Sometimes I feel like I have two babies...the at home Amelia is BIG and LOUD and ALL OVER THE PLACE. But then there is the out in public Amelia...that's the teeny tiny small Amelia...the I'll-burst-into-tears-if-a-stranger-even-dares-look-at-me Amelia. So yes...Amelia is the shy kid...the only baby that will sit off to the side and just watch everyone else living it up...every now and then making a movement as if she wants to crawl off and chase after someone but immediately retreats. It absolutely breaks my heart...but she comes by it honestly...I'm the exact same way.

But I know she's tough...and we'll get through it together...or until I embarrass her by putting naked bathtub pictures of her on the internet. (COMING SOON!)

One year ago today, everything changed. 9 months of waiting + 16 hours of labor = a whole year of joy and tears and hope and baby giggles and more then I can ever say. I can't wait to see what the next year brings.

Here's looking back...and looking forward. Happy Birthday Amelia...Mama would tell you how much she loves you...but you hate it when I interrupt "Johnny and the Sprites." So I'll just tell the internet instead.