Beep beep....
Beep beep....
Beep beep....
This is my microwave. A polite, electronic "ahem" to tell me that it is done heating whatever it is I put in there three minutes ago to heat and have already forgotten about.
Beep beep...
It drives my husband crazy. He would love to figure out how to disconnect it. "I know my food is in there. I will get it in a minute! Why does it have to keep going off like that?"
I'll tell you why. Because of me. Or, rather, people like me. I've made the mistake of turning off the little beep beep but not actually getting the thing out that's in there because I'm in the midst of doing something else. I'd say this results, about 80% of the time, in me finding the thing -- a cold cup of water, a room-temperature baked potato, or some semi-congealed plate of pasta -- the next time I go to use the microwave.
I do this All. The. Time. Really. The house is littered with partially finished projects, semi-cleaned-out boxes, piles of paper that have been somewhat sorted and need to be filed away. Each half-done chore represents a moment of workus interruptus. I'd be happy to blame my children or spouse but really, most of the time I distract myself. I go to put away some towels and discover a shelf covered in things that need carrying to the basement, but by the time I reach the first floor, I remember that I wanted to put in a load of laundry first, and....
The reason I bring this up now is because we just finished mopping up the basement, which had begun to flood while J and I were down there admiring the work he'd done on re-organizing the shelves. The basement was flooding because I'd left the water on in the laundry room sink, which I'd been filling to soak some jeans. When I started the water running, I began to walk out of the room and stopped myself. "No. I need to just wait right here for two minutes while this fills. It is not that hard to occupy my thoughts for two minutes, because if I leave I will forget and flood the basement."
Really. This was my train of thought. Only, it got derailed when J showed up and said "I want you to come look at the basement before I head to the store, and see all the work I've done." I left my previous train of thought chugging away past the station to Floodville and merrily trooped downstairs.
<sigh>
On the plus side, the floor of the basement is now clear of all the grossness that had accumulated there and the floor of the laundry room is rather clean as well. Or, it will be when I toss the load of just-cleaned-and-dried-towels that had been sitting there that I used to mop up the mess.
I think it's about time to go make myself some hot chocolate. With any luck, I'll even remember to drink it before it gets cold.
disapproving kitty
Sunday, December 2, 2012
If You Want it Hidden Forever, Put it in the Bag by the Sewing Machine
So I'm making an attempt here to try Holidalies, and committing to posting something on this blog every day for the month of December.
I'm a day late in signing up for it, because, well I'm really good at procrastination. It's one of my best skills. I find that procrastinating can often just make a lot of problems go away. You know those 3T jeans with the big rip in the knee from when the child wearing them chose to skid across the pavement? They're still sitting by the sewing machine, in a bag, waiting to be repaired. The child in question now wears size 6, and his little sister is heading into 4s as I write this. Problem fixed! All I have to do now is put them in the giant pile of stuff for Goodwill, or keep telling myself that I could cut them into patches for the next set of jeans that acquire a giant hole.
Truth is, neither of these things will happen. The jeans will quietly sit in the bag until my kid goes off to college or I hire one of those professional de-clutterers to help me reclaim my house. I have the number of one, but haven't contacted her yet.
I think you know why.
According to the Holidalies, they'll give you a prompt for each day, and today's (well, yesterday's) was "Introduce yourself."
This is not the most promising of introductions.
I suppose, if you want the real introductory kind of thing, I should state for the record that I'm your basic domestic model mom/wife/career woman with a cluttered house, some weird food allergies and a complete lack of patience with technology. I've written about this before and was going to link to a previous post about it, but of course I can't find it now. Suffice it to say that I need my technology to be just about 100% intuitive and as easy to use at the computers on Star Trek. Anything less and I just can't be bothered. Like right now, when the stupid mouse button on the laptop thinks I'm right clicking when I'm not and keeps offering to look things up in Spotlight for me. I don't even know what Spotlight is, nor do I care*. I can't get it to happen when I want it to, but it happens all the time when I don't and it's aggravating as sh*t.
This is still not the most promising of introductions.
I don't write about personal stuff, unless it's my own personal stuff that pretty much everyone I know knows about me already, like having weird food allergies and joint pain and issues with getting things done on time. I try very hard not to write about other people's personal stuff, though I do write about my kids a fair amount. I usually don't write about marriage, because I worry that people will think I'm writing about my marriage in particular and will start looking at us funny at parties.
I do take liberties with the truth upon occasions. I wrote once about not having capers and soon after two people bought me capers to put into my fridge. They are still there, along with the bottle I had when I wrote the post. Sometimes the truth just doesn't capture the moment the way a little embellishment does.
So.
Welcome to my blog.
I hope you'll come back and read it again.
And if you're in the market for a bagful of clothes that need reapairing, just let me know. I'll mail it to you.....when I get around to it.
*I really don't. However, if you'd like to tell me how to get it to stop effing right clicking, though, that'd be appreciated. But please don't tell me, "Hey! Click on the left!" Because I tried that. (despite the whole procrastination thing, I'm not actually a moron.) In fact it has no bearing whatsoever where I click on the little mouse bar. Purposefully clicking on the right has no effect and does not bring up the annoying little menu. It only happens when I don't want it to.
I'm a day late in signing up for it, because, well I'm really good at procrastination. It's one of my best skills. I find that procrastinating can often just make a lot of problems go away. You know those 3T jeans with the big rip in the knee from when the child wearing them chose to skid across the pavement? They're still sitting by the sewing machine, in a bag, waiting to be repaired. The child in question now wears size 6, and his little sister is heading into 4s as I write this. Problem fixed! All I have to do now is put them in the giant pile of stuff for Goodwill, or keep telling myself that I could cut them into patches for the next set of jeans that acquire a giant hole.
Truth is, neither of these things will happen. The jeans will quietly sit in the bag until my kid goes off to college or I hire one of those professional de-clutterers to help me reclaim my house. I have the number of one, but haven't contacted her yet.
I think you know why.
According to the Holidalies, they'll give you a prompt for each day, and today's (well, yesterday's) was "Introduce yourself."
This is not the most promising of introductions.
I suppose, if you want the real introductory kind of thing, I should state for the record that I'm your basic domestic model mom/wife/career woman with a cluttered house, some weird food allergies and a complete lack of patience with technology. I've written about this before and was going to link to a previous post about it, but of course I can't find it now. Suffice it to say that I need my technology to be just about 100% intuitive and as easy to use at the computers on Star Trek. Anything less and I just can't be bothered. Like right now, when the stupid mouse button on the laptop thinks I'm right clicking when I'm not and keeps offering to look things up in Spotlight for me. I don't even know what Spotlight is, nor do I care*. I can't get it to happen when I want it to, but it happens all the time when I don't and it's aggravating as sh*t.
This is still not the most promising of introductions.
I don't write about personal stuff, unless it's my own personal stuff that pretty much everyone I know knows about me already, like having weird food allergies and joint pain and issues with getting things done on time. I try very hard not to write about other people's personal stuff, though I do write about my kids a fair amount. I usually don't write about marriage, because I worry that people will think I'm writing about my marriage in particular and will start looking at us funny at parties.
I do take liberties with the truth upon occasions. I wrote once about not having capers and soon after two people bought me capers to put into my fridge. They are still there, along with the bottle I had when I wrote the post. Sometimes the truth just doesn't capture the moment the way a little embellishment does.
So.
Welcome to my blog.
I hope you'll come back and read it again.
And if you're in the market for a bagful of clothes that need reapairing, just let me know. I'll mail it to you.....when I get around to it.
*I really don't. However, if you'd like to tell me how to get it to stop effing right clicking, though, that'd be appreciated. But please don't tell me, "Hey! Click on the left!" Because I tried that. (despite the whole procrastination thing, I'm not actually a moron.) In fact it has no bearing whatsoever where I click on the little mouse bar. Purposefully clicking on the right has no effect and does not bring up the annoying little menu. It only happens when I don't want it to.
Monday, October 22, 2012
I Didn't Think it was a Real Thing, Either.
Clearly I'm failing at writing in here every day, or even every month. Year? Could this be a yearly blog? I could probably manage that.
Then again, maybe not.
I have this mental list of all the things I *could* write about, but I discard about 90% of them as "too weird," "too personal" or both. I know it seems odd to have a personal blog and then declare that I don't want to put anything overly personal on it, but there it is. I wouldn't say that I'm all that discreet* in general, but you gotta start somewhere.
One idea of the remaining 10% is the idea of writing about being gluten-free. I really don't want to be one of the gf blogs because honestly, there are a lot of really good ones out there, and I'd probably just be duplicating a lot of things. Also, there's no aspect of gf living that I'm *really* into, like baking or eating out or alternative medicines and such. A friend of mine is very much into gf baking, to the point where she's needing to have sensitive scales and is consulting chemistry books to figure out how different ingredients are going to go together. She could write a very cool blog about all the experimental baking she's doing. I, on the other hand, play it pretty fast and loose with the ingredients in the kitchen, and I never write anything down (as witnessed by the lack of entries here.)
I will say, though, that I know that many people still don't believe that eating gluten free is all that important for people. It looks like a fad, and I think, for many people, it is. It's a way to lose weight (cutting out anything made with flour really does restrict your diet until you find work-arounds) and it's trendy right now. I'm glad for that, because a LOT more food is getting labeled as gluten-free, or conversely, with a gluten-allergen warning. Many more gf products are on the market. So I'm fine with people who've gone gluten-free for fad/trendy reasons or whatever the hell their reasons are.
However, just because some people have gone gluten free who aren't really sensitive to it, or intolerant or allergic doesn't mean that all of us are that way. I live in terror of accidentally ingesting gluten. I've had nightmares about it. (This isn't all that unusual. I have intense dreams all the time, but that's another topic.) I get really sick from gluten. Only, if you feed me gluten "just to see" you won't see anything. I get really sick four hours later. After I've gone home. Or left the restaurant. Or am at the movie theater. And it's really unpleasant.
Some times are worse than others, and the worst times are when I'm near to losing consciousness from the pain or this weird form of internal pressure that can cause fainting (along with sweating, shakes and nausea.) It's not fun. And I'm not going to go into any more detail than that except to say that when I'm suffering, my family suffers, to because it's hard to be in the same room with me and heaven forbid we're stuck in a car together.
I have a variety of odd theories about why there are people like me, and many who have it much, much worse. There isn't, as far as I know, any kind of known cause for the intolerance, just lots of other vague theories. And no way to get rid of it. I've consulted a variety of doctors, next on the list being a gastroenterologist and after that an allergist, even though it doesn't seem very allergy-like.
I will give out one piece of gf-advice for those who might not know it yet: how to eat at catered events. I see this a lot on advice columns, for everything from vegetarian eaters to life-threatening nut-allergy eaters. The complaints are either from the bride, asking how far she has to go to provide meal options for every person coming or from the attendee, who wants to know what's reasonable to ask for so they don't get poisoned at dinner. My solution? Don't bug the bride (or the party host). She's got enough going on. Bug the caterer. Politely. Ask to see the menu and ingredients. Tell them why in simple, polite terms. Don't be dramatic. If you'll be at a special venue, far from where the food is actually being cooked, then you will need to ask the host for the caterer's contact info prior to the event, but if nothing else you can seek him/her out upon arrival and see what might be safe to eat. Caterers don't want to make their client's guests get sick. It's bad for business. So they'll try to be accommodating if they can. If they can't, well, then they can't. Don't be a drama queen about it. Just pack yourself a stash of gf food you can eat, and munch on that. Don't hie yourself off to the bathroom to do it in secret, either. Just eat what you need to and if anybody asks, just be honest and quick about it. Nothing's worse than hearing someone go on about their food issues. (I have been this person, boring the living daylights out of everyone. Someone should slap me.)
So that's it. Maybe my next post will be about some other 10% thing like my weird dreams (probably not on the theory that listening to someone else describe their dreams in excruciating detail is right up there with watching paint dry.) or my top ten favorite ways to procrastinate.
Till then, Dear Readers. (all four of you.)
*Did you know that way the hell too many people don't know the difference between "discreet" and "discrete?" I discovered this recently. I don't want to be all grammar - Nazi and all, but come on, people. Then again, I think upwards of 95% of Facebook users can't properly use your/you're, so maybe I'm just asking too much.
Then again, maybe not.
I have this mental list of all the things I *could* write about, but I discard about 90% of them as "too weird," "too personal" or both. I know it seems odd to have a personal blog and then declare that I don't want to put anything overly personal on it, but there it is. I wouldn't say that I'm all that discreet* in general, but you gotta start somewhere.
One idea of the remaining 10% is the idea of writing about being gluten-free. I really don't want to be one of the gf blogs because honestly, there are a lot of really good ones out there, and I'd probably just be duplicating a lot of things. Also, there's no aspect of gf living that I'm *really* into, like baking or eating out or alternative medicines and such. A friend of mine is very much into gf baking, to the point where she's needing to have sensitive scales and is consulting chemistry books to figure out how different ingredients are going to go together. She could write a very cool blog about all the experimental baking she's doing. I, on the other hand, play it pretty fast and loose with the ingredients in the kitchen, and I never write anything down (as witnessed by the lack of entries here.)
I will say, though, that I know that many people still don't believe that eating gluten free is all that important for people. It looks like a fad, and I think, for many people, it is. It's a way to lose weight (cutting out anything made with flour really does restrict your diet until you find work-arounds) and it's trendy right now. I'm glad for that, because a LOT more food is getting labeled as gluten-free, or conversely, with a gluten-allergen warning. Many more gf products are on the market. So I'm fine with people who've gone gluten-free for fad/trendy reasons or whatever the hell their reasons are.
However, just because some people have gone gluten free who aren't really sensitive to it, or intolerant or allergic doesn't mean that all of us are that way. I live in terror of accidentally ingesting gluten. I've had nightmares about it. (This isn't all that unusual. I have intense dreams all the time, but that's another topic.) I get really sick from gluten. Only, if you feed me gluten "just to see" you won't see anything. I get really sick four hours later. After I've gone home. Or left the restaurant. Or am at the movie theater. And it's really unpleasant.
Some times are worse than others, and the worst times are when I'm near to losing consciousness from the pain or this weird form of internal pressure that can cause fainting (along with sweating, shakes and nausea.) It's not fun. And I'm not going to go into any more detail than that except to say that when I'm suffering, my family suffers, to because it's hard to be in the same room with me and heaven forbid we're stuck in a car together.
I have a variety of odd theories about why there are people like me, and many who have it much, much worse. There isn't, as far as I know, any kind of known cause for the intolerance, just lots of other vague theories. And no way to get rid of it. I've consulted a variety of doctors, next on the list being a gastroenterologist and after that an allergist, even though it doesn't seem very allergy-like.
I will give out one piece of gf-advice for those who might not know it yet: how to eat at catered events. I see this a lot on advice columns, for everything from vegetarian eaters to life-threatening nut-allergy eaters. The complaints are either from the bride, asking how far she has to go to provide meal options for every person coming or from the attendee, who wants to know what's reasonable to ask for so they don't get poisoned at dinner. My solution? Don't bug the bride (or the party host). She's got enough going on. Bug the caterer. Politely. Ask to see the menu and ingredients. Tell them why in simple, polite terms. Don't be dramatic. If you'll be at a special venue, far from where the food is actually being cooked, then you will need to ask the host for the caterer's contact info prior to the event, but if nothing else you can seek him/her out upon arrival and see what might be safe to eat. Caterers don't want to make their client's guests get sick. It's bad for business. So they'll try to be accommodating if they can. If they can't, well, then they can't. Don't be a drama queen about it. Just pack yourself a stash of gf food you can eat, and munch on that. Don't hie yourself off to the bathroom to do it in secret, either. Just eat what you need to and if anybody asks, just be honest and quick about it. Nothing's worse than hearing someone go on about their food issues. (I have been this person, boring the living daylights out of everyone. Someone should slap me.)
So that's it. Maybe my next post will be about some other 10% thing like my weird dreams (probably not on the theory that listening to someone else describe their dreams in excruciating detail is right up there with watching paint dry.) or my top ten favorite ways to procrastinate.
Till then, Dear Readers. (all four of you.)
*Did you know that way the hell too many people don't know the difference between "discreet" and "discrete?" I discovered this recently. I don't want to be all grammar - Nazi and all, but come on, people. Then again, I think upwards of 95% of Facebook users can't properly use your/you're, so maybe I'm just asking too much.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Other People's Children
Tonight we are hosting two boys from a touring choir group. It's about day 5 of a 17 day tour with about 30 boys, ages 10 - 16 and holy moley is it well organized. The boys are polite and one of them is talkative and both of them like "The Simpsons" and want to know about Cedar Point so we aren't at a loss for conversational topics. They've also been well taught to introduce themselves and shake hands which I think is quite possibly the most valuable thing they'll take away from this whole experience.
I was in choirs as a kid and I can recall my own mom hosting kids from a traveling high school marching band so when one of my colleagues was asking around if anyone could be a host family it seemed like something we should do. Fortunately, J was amenable to the idea, if a little baffled by the whole concept. We really only have them here for a few waking hours both days, so it's not like it's all that taxing, but I'm still glad that I can usually count on him to be a good egg about such things, which is one of the many reasons I love him.
It feels a little strange to be on this side of the kids-who-aren't-related-to-me-staying-at-our-house equation. I've had other people's children here before, of course, but always with their parents here, too. So I am, for a couple nights, "The Mom." Why this should feel different from any other night I'm not really sure, since I'm "The Mom" every night. But still.
It also seems a little amazing that someone else who has never met me, and can only really trust me by proxy of proxy of proxy, has entrusted me with their pre-teenage children. It speaks of people with a deep faith in the goodness of others, and enough trust in their own parenting skills that they're willing to send their children off into the world for two weeks without them.
This is even more profound given that the boys are not to use computers or phones during the entire tour. No email, no texting no phone calls home. The only way they are supposed to communicate with their parents is via actual letters. I'm not sure why they have this rule, or even if it's a good one, but it makes the whole thing just a little bit more amazing in this age of instant all-the-time connectivity.
So for now, I am The Mom for these two boys and will get to practice having near-teenagers to get out of bed for a couple mornings.
I hope someday someone will do this for my kids, too.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
This Is Why I Never Get Anything Done
I'm fairly certain that there is an app for my phone that will let me record notes for myself. I would find this app tremendously useful since I am constantly thinking about things that I could write up into a relatively easy blog post, if only I could keep it in my brain for longer than a few seconds. By the time I actually get to my computer at the end of the day, I haven't the faintest idea of what it was I thought would be so droll to write about earlier.
So I'd like to get this app, should it exist. I've been thinking about looking for it, which wouldn't take long to do, except that I usually don't remember to even look for it while I have my phone with me. Unless I'm in my car. Driving. Then I think of all the great things I could be doing with my phone at that moment if I weren't so inconveniently distracted by navigating a 1,000 lb vehicle through heavy traffic at high speeds.
Times like right now, when it's very quiet (the kids are at daycare) and I have nothing else pressing to do (except all the things I was planning to get done over Spring Break which I have yet to get started on) would be perfect for finding this app on my phone. Except that I don't have my phone with me. I never remember to keep my phone with me after I walk in the door. I leave it in my purse, or on the counter or even in the car and just forget about it entirely until I am sitting down and want it again. But I'm sitting now, see? If I get up again to get the phone then I'm liable to see the gargantuan mess in the kitchen, and remember the pile of laundry sitting in the living room. While I'm taking care of those chores, I'll walk through gunk on my floor (my floor is always messy. Always.) and decide it needs to be mopped. But before it can be mopped it has to be swept first, and when I go to get the broom I'll realize what a mess the laundry room is because we store the play-doh in there, and the kids were tasked with putting it away yesterday. Which means that there are 3, 478,621 little play-doh related toys strewn about my laundry room, making it difficult to do anything else in there. By the time all of that is cleaned up, I'll remember to put in another load of actual laundry, and see that there's a huge stack of ironing to do if I ever want to wear any of my dress shirts again.
Except that the good ironing board is upstairs so I'll carry the big pile up, and turn on the tv so I can watch something while I'm ironing. This is not effective since we only get 4 channels on the upstairs tv since they switched over to digital signal or whatever. They sent us some notice a year ago about getting a free box. I asked J to take care of it, figuring this fit under the heading of "All Things Technological" and was thus his job. He classified it under "All Things Having to do With Household-Related Nuisances" and reassigned it to me, thus we have a fairly useless tv in our bedroom. All that aside, being upstairs reminds me that DD's bed isn't made up since she wet it last night, and I still have laundry to put away from the last iteration of laundry. All the while, I'll be thinking of clever and interesting things to write in a blog post, but forgetting all of them because I don't have the app that records me. I won't even have my phone with me.
You see how it goes. It's the grownup version of "You Give a Mouse a Cookie."
By the time I'm done with getting everything and nothing really done, it'll be time to go somewhere and I'll get into the car, whereupon I will discover my phone. But I won't have time to do anything with it because I need to be driving.
Many of the things in my life are like this. Calling handymen, hiring local kids to do yardwork, all of the little tasky things that pile up in a household. By the time my brain settles enough after a day to think about all of them...it's 10:30 a night and too late to call anyone.
And even if it weren't, wherever I'd be, I still wouldn't have my phone.
So I'd like to get this app, should it exist. I've been thinking about looking for it, which wouldn't take long to do, except that I usually don't remember to even look for it while I have my phone with me. Unless I'm in my car. Driving. Then I think of all the great things I could be doing with my phone at that moment if I weren't so inconveniently distracted by navigating a 1,000 lb vehicle through heavy traffic at high speeds.
Times like right now, when it's very quiet (the kids are at daycare) and I have nothing else pressing to do (except all the things I was planning to get done over Spring Break which I have yet to get started on) would be perfect for finding this app on my phone. Except that I don't have my phone with me. I never remember to keep my phone with me after I walk in the door. I leave it in my purse, or on the counter or even in the car and just forget about it entirely until I am sitting down and want it again. But I'm sitting now, see? If I get up again to get the phone then I'm liable to see the gargantuan mess in the kitchen, and remember the pile of laundry sitting in the living room. While I'm taking care of those chores, I'll walk through gunk on my floor (my floor is always messy. Always.) and decide it needs to be mopped. But before it can be mopped it has to be swept first, and when I go to get the broom I'll realize what a mess the laundry room is because we store the play-doh in there, and the kids were tasked with putting it away yesterday. Which means that there are 3, 478,621 little play-doh related toys strewn about my laundry room, making it difficult to do anything else in there. By the time all of that is cleaned up, I'll remember to put in another load of actual laundry, and see that there's a huge stack of ironing to do if I ever want to wear any of my dress shirts again.
Except that the good ironing board is upstairs so I'll carry the big pile up, and turn on the tv so I can watch something while I'm ironing. This is not effective since we only get 4 channels on the upstairs tv since they switched over to digital signal or whatever. They sent us some notice a year ago about getting a free box. I asked J to take care of it, figuring this fit under the heading of "All Things Technological" and was thus his job. He classified it under "All Things Having to do With Household-Related Nuisances" and reassigned it to me, thus we have a fairly useless tv in our bedroom. All that aside, being upstairs reminds me that DD's bed isn't made up since she wet it last night, and I still have laundry to put away from the last iteration of laundry. All the while, I'll be thinking of clever and interesting things to write in a blog post, but forgetting all of them because I don't have the app that records me. I won't even have my phone with me.
You see how it goes. It's the grownup version of "You Give a Mouse a Cookie."
By the time I'm done with getting everything and nothing really done, it'll be time to go somewhere and I'll get into the car, whereupon I will discover my phone. But I won't have time to do anything with it because I need to be driving.
Many of the things in my life are like this. Calling handymen, hiring local kids to do yardwork, all of the little tasky things that pile up in a household. By the time my brain settles enough after a day to think about all of them...it's 10:30 a night and too late to call anyone.
And even if it weren't, wherever I'd be, I still wouldn't have my phone.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Something I Forgot....
I originally wrote this post a month ago, and then promptly forgot about it in the rush of getting ready for Christmas. It's a nice little bit, though, and cheerful, so I thought I'd just go ahead and post it late.
Word to the wise, though, now that's it's January, don't vulture my parking spot. I will consider it my personal mission to make you regret it.
I braved the mall yesterday to find a gift for my Dad. I'd originally gone someplace else, but it turns out the store I'd wanted had turned into a WalMart or something, and I had to go to my backup, Macy's. Before heading to the dreaded Mall-at-Christmastime, I treated myself to a walk around World Market, which has lots of little trinket-y things, and an interesting blend of foreign, gourmet and just plain bizarre foodstuffs, and is a nice place to sort of wander-shop for those people you'd like to buy a gift for, but have no idea what to get. Also a good spot for fun stocking-stuffers. So that was nice.
The mall was, well, the mall at Christmastime. People were parked everywhere, some even just gave up at finding spaces and added ones on at the ends of rows till they pretty much blocked the little roads that are supposed to go around the lot. I can't really blame them. You gotta be flexible about parking at Christmastime. I wound up parking in the very last slot in a row, but I didn't care. It was nearly 60 degrees out and sunny. (Really. It was gorgeous. No coat. On December 20th in Ohio. While this doesn't bode well for the polar bears and penguins, I guiltily enjoyed it.)
Other drivers were carefully stalking people leaving the mall, tailing them at 3mph while a long line of other frustrated drivers piled up behind them, making the shopper look like the Grand Marshall of the Parade From Hell. Now, usually I have great loathing for people who "vulture" parking spots, and will even go out of my way to be as slow as humanly possible (easy when you have two toddlers along) when packing up, buckling in, etc. I do this only when there is a spot, or even an entire empty parking lot starting three slots down from my car. I have had a guy vulture my spot to save himself the trouble of walking an extra four spaces. Granted, he could have been someone with difficulty walking, but given the robustness of his gestures towards me and my kids, I kinda doubt it.
At Christmastime, though, the anti-vulture rule goes out the window. There is no other spot, and the person behind me isn't looking to get in closer, they're just trying to park at all and get into the damn mall to buy something their kid decided he needed yesterday. So I have sympathy.
And, in truth, it wasn't that bad. I didn't have my kids along. I found what I wanted. A lady next to me in line at Macy's offered me the use of her 15% off coupon, and it didn't even require that I have a Macy's card. Five bucks off! At Christmas! How sweet is that?
Word to the wise, though, now that's it's January, don't vulture my parking spot. I will consider it my personal mission to make you regret it.
I braved the mall yesterday to find a gift for my Dad. I'd originally gone someplace else, but it turns out the store I'd wanted had turned into a WalMart or something, and I had to go to my backup, Macy's. Before heading to the dreaded Mall-at-Christmastime, I treated myself to a walk around World Market, which has lots of little trinket-y things, and an interesting blend of foreign, gourmet and just plain bizarre foodstuffs, and is a nice place to sort of wander-shop for those people you'd like to buy a gift for, but have no idea what to get. Also a good spot for fun stocking-stuffers. So that was nice.
The mall was, well, the mall at Christmastime. People were parked everywhere, some even just gave up at finding spaces and added ones on at the ends of rows till they pretty much blocked the little roads that are supposed to go around the lot. I can't really blame them. You gotta be flexible about parking at Christmastime. I wound up parking in the very last slot in a row, but I didn't care. It was nearly 60 degrees out and sunny. (Really. It was gorgeous. No coat. On December 20th in Ohio. While this doesn't bode well for the polar bears and penguins, I guiltily enjoyed it.)
Other drivers were carefully stalking people leaving the mall, tailing them at 3mph while a long line of other frustrated drivers piled up behind them, making the shopper look like the Grand Marshall of the Parade From Hell. Now, usually I have great loathing for people who "vulture" parking spots, and will even go out of my way to be as slow as humanly possible (easy when you have two toddlers along) when packing up, buckling in, etc. I do this only when there is a spot, or even an entire empty parking lot starting three slots down from my car. I have had a guy vulture my spot to save himself the trouble of walking an extra four spaces. Granted, he could have been someone with difficulty walking, but given the robustness of his gestures towards me and my kids, I kinda doubt it.
At Christmastime, though, the anti-vulture rule goes out the window. There is no other spot, and the person behind me isn't looking to get in closer, they're just trying to park at all and get into the damn mall to buy something their kid decided he needed yesterday. So I have sympathy.
And, in truth, it wasn't that bad. I didn't have my kids along. I found what I wanted. A lady next to me in line at Macy's offered me the use of her 15% off coupon, and it didn't even require that I have a Macy's card. Five bucks off! At Christmas! How sweet is that?
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Things I Wish Someone Might Have Mentioned
I spent some time recently with a pregnant friend -- her first -- and we got to talking about this and that and it occurred to me that there were several things I wish someone had bothered to tell me. I mean, I'm sure this information was out there somewhere, but while I was pregnant, it just wasn't something that stuck well in my brain.
There's all this advice out there about parenting, and a lot of it just served to make me feel guilty because I wasn't doing all of it, wasn't feeling the way everyone said I should feel, or just wasn't doing the right things the right way and well enough for them to count. This is not that kind of advice list. This list is for the parents who are quietly terrified that they are going to seriously eff things up, but can't tell anyone, especially their spouse, because that would just be, well, awful.*
1. You are about to be a member of a club that is simultaneously well known and completely unknown at the same time. Everyone knows that there are parents out there, but until you actually are one you really, really don't get it. I'm not trying to make parents out as having some magnificent mystique that make them better than everyone else, 'cause they aren't, but parents just feel differently about the world once their offspring is part of it. I can't explain it, but it's partially a feeling of absolute vulnerability that never goes away.
2. If you are a pregnant mom right now, you are tired. Growing another person is tiring. It's exhausting. You want to sleep all the time. This may not seem possible, but once the baby is born, you will be more tired. More exhausted. All. The. Time. The good thing? It gets better. It will take a few years, but you will actually get to sleep through the night again. Until you have another baby.
3. Being exhausted and sleep-deprived will make you crabby. This is okay. Your baby will survive crabbiness. And there will be times that you will hate your baby. Believe it or not, this is okay, too. You are not a bad parent for having this feeling. (You are only a bad parent if you give in and act on it. Despite what some religions and parenting gurus espouse, thoughts don't count.) This, like sleepless nights, is temporary. It goes away. You really will, or do love your baby. But hours and hours of endless, unwavering screaming for no reason when you are absolutely spent would give anyone the urge to fling baby down a flight of stairs. In your deranged state you will think that at least in jail you could sleep. Instead you put baby down safely in her crib and shut the door for 15 minutes. You regain some sanity, and baby will survive a few minutes of alone time. Let the guilt go for this one, okay?
4. Speaking of loving your baby, not everyone feels the instant overwhelming love that everyone gushes about. Maybe all you feel is panic, or just a sense of unreality. (Having a human being come out of you is sort of an unreal experience, really.) Give it time. It will come. Do all the things a parent who was wildly in love with their baby would do--coo and cuddle and say all sorts of loving things, sing and smile and rock him gently, feed and stroke and play with tiny toes and fingers and gradually you will realize that you do, in fact, love this baby more than you've loved anyone in your entire life. If this doesn't happen, and isn't working, and you just feel, well, nothing, you might have post-partum depression. (see #5)
5. (Caveat: I have never had post-partum depression, but I do know people who have, and I know, for sure, it is REAL. It's real as a tumor and about as funny.) Post-partum depression is when your body chemistry doesn't get lined up right and your brain doesn't make the right kind of neurotransmitters to keep you functioning properly. It dampens everything. Blankets your mental landscape with a layer of dust so thick that to think or feel properly about anything takes so much energy that you can't do it, especially when your energy is at low ebb to begin with because you are trying to take care of a baby and not sleeping. If you feel like this, GET HELP. The problem is chemical and there is better living to be had through chemistry. And feel free to give a resounding "f*ck you" to anyone who tells you that you should just be able to get over it on your own. If they did, well, bully for them, but this is about you and you are entitled to the help you need.
6. This one is entirely of a practical nature, and has to do with women's bodies. So if you're a guy and would rather not know, skip ahead. Okay, ladies, now that we're alone -- I had always thought that during pregnancy your period just stops. Turns out it doesn't. It just stops coming out. While you're pregnant, there's this big buildup of blood in there, along with fluid and baby and god knows what else. And it all comes out. For me, I had two c-sections and thus did not push any of it out along with my children. I suppose some women do. For the next several days I had to wear the world's ugliest lingerie, a diaper-thick papery/cloth-diapery thing with webbing to hold it up, and I had to change it several times a day. It is, in a word, gross. And disturbing. (Okay, that's two words, but it really is. It is odd to bleed that much and not have it be of concern to medical personnel.) The point is, nobody told me this would happen. It was just "here you are, dearie" from the OB nurses like I should be figuring out why the hell I want these god-awful things and they're all surprised that I wasn't expecting this.
7. You will sometimes suck as a parent. Despite all your best intentions, you will do things wrong. You'll stick your kid with diaper pins, or accidentally bang their little noggin into a doorway (they stick out a lot farther than you think when you're cradling them in your arms.) You'll overheat the formula and leave something dangerous lying around and make the bathwater too cold. You'll lose your temper and yell at your toddler, and maybe even swat his behind because you just can't stand it anymore. You'll let her eat nothing but cheese for three days because that is all she will eat without screaming for 15 solid minutes. You will forget to buy diapers or bring a change of clothing, and you will hire at least one incompetent babysitter. It happens. Not that it's good to make a habit of being forgetful, and it's a good idea to learn from your mistakes, but it's not a good idea to beat yourself up about it and lie awake at night berating yourself -- or your spouse. Neither of you are going to be getting enough sleep as it is, so forgive yourself and each other.
8. Keeping number 7 in mind, be very, very careful of how you judge another parent. The one who has a coatless three-year-old in 30 degree weather as she hustles the 20 yards into daycare? The one who gives her child melatonin at night? The one whose floor hasn't been vacuumed in months? The one who dozes on the couch for two hours while her kids watch Sesame Street? Don't judge. Especially if it's before you've given birth and tried this for yourself. There could well be a some day when you pray that nobody is watching you be a parent because you know you'd be found wanting.
9. You don't suck as bad as you think you do. If your baby has colic and does nothing but scream for 3 hours a night every damn night no matter what you do, it's not because you suck as a parent. It's because mother nature is sometimes a real bitch for no reason, and your baby just has colic. Babies come with lots of built in things, and sometimes you get an easygoing baby, and sometimes you don't. If you get the hard kind, it's not because you deserve it or that you're doing something terribly wrong. You know more than you think you do, and you're better at this than you think. Have faith.
10. Last, but not least, you will be getting a lot of advice. A LOT. You might seek it out, or have it thrust upon you by well-meaning grandmas, mothers-in-law, sisters, friends and strangers. Keep this phrase handy "Oh? Okay. Thanks for the advice. I'll keep it in mind." Then you can deep six anything you think is not for you, or just total crap. Feel free to do it now. Won't hurt my feelings a bit.
*there are parents out there who are truly awful. They do wretched things to their children out of their own mental illness, addiction or raging narcissism. If you are one of those parents then please go get help now. You can start here.
There's all this advice out there about parenting, and a lot of it just served to make me feel guilty because I wasn't doing all of it, wasn't feeling the way everyone said I should feel, or just wasn't doing the right things the right way and well enough for them to count. This is not that kind of advice list. This list is for the parents who are quietly terrified that they are going to seriously eff things up, but can't tell anyone, especially their spouse, because that would just be, well, awful.*
1. You are about to be a member of a club that is simultaneously well known and completely unknown at the same time. Everyone knows that there are parents out there, but until you actually are one you really, really don't get it. I'm not trying to make parents out as having some magnificent mystique that make them better than everyone else, 'cause they aren't, but parents just feel differently about the world once their offspring is part of it. I can't explain it, but it's partially a feeling of absolute vulnerability that never goes away.
2. If you are a pregnant mom right now, you are tired. Growing another person is tiring. It's exhausting. You want to sleep all the time. This may not seem possible, but once the baby is born, you will be more tired. More exhausted. All. The. Time. The good thing? It gets better. It will take a few years, but you will actually get to sleep through the night again. Until you have another baby.
3. Being exhausted and sleep-deprived will make you crabby. This is okay. Your baby will survive crabbiness. And there will be times that you will hate your baby. Believe it or not, this is okay, too. You are not a bad parent for having this feeling. (You are only a bad parent if you give in and act on it. Despite what some religions and parenting gurus espouse, thoughts don't count.) This, like sleepless nights, is temporary. It goes away. You really will, or do love your baby. But hours and hours of endless, unwavering screaming for no reason when you are absolutely spent would give anyone the urge to fling baby down a flight of stairs. In your deranged state you will think that at least in jail you could sleep. Instead you put baby down safely in her crib and shut the door for 15 minutes. You regain some sanity, and baby will survive a few minutes of alone time. Let the guilt go for this one, okay?
4. Speaking of loving your baby, not everyone feels the instant overwhelming love that everyone gushes about. Maybe all you feel is panic, or just a sense of unreality. (Having a human being come out of you is sort of an unreal experience, really.) Give it time. It will come. Do all the things a parent who was wildly in love with their baby would do--coo and cuddle and say all sorts of loving things, sing and smile and rock him gently, feed and stroke and play with tiny toes and fingers and gradually you will realize that you do, in fact, love this baby more than you've loved anyone in your entire life. If this doesn't happen, and isn't working, and you just feel, well, nothing, you might have post-partum depression. (see #5)
5. (Caveat: I have never had post-partum depression, but I do know people who have, and I know, for sure, it is REAL. It's real as a tumor and about as funny.) Post-partum depression is when your body chemistry doesn't get lined up right and your brain doesn't make the right kind of neurotransmitters to keep you functioning properly. It dampens everything. Blankets your mental landscape with a layer of dust so thick that to think or feel properly about anything takes so much energy that you can't do it, especially when your energy is at low ebb to begin with because you are trying to take care of a baby and not sleeping. If you feel like this, GET HELP. The problem is chemical and there is better living to be had through chemistry. And feel free to give a resounding "f*ck you" to anyone who tells you that you should just be able to get over it on your own. If they did, well, bully for them, but this is about you and you are entitled to the help you need.
6. This one is entirely of a practical nature, and has to do with women's bodies. So if you're a guy and would rather not know, skip ahead. Okay, ladies, now that we're alone -- I had always thought that during pregnancy your period just stops. Turns out it doesn't. It just stops coming out. While you're pregnant, there's this big buildup of blood in there, along with fluid and baby and god knows what else. And it all comes out. For me, I had two c-sections and thus did not push any of it out along with my children. I suppose some women do. For the next several days I had to wear the world's ugliest lingerie, a diaper-thick papery/cloth-diapery thing with webbing to hold it up, and I had to change it several times a day. It is, in a word, gross. And disturbing. (Okay, that's two words, but it really is. It is odd to bleed that much and not have it be of concern to medical personnel.) The point is, nobody told me this would happen. It was just "here you are, dearie" from the OB nurses like I should be figuring out why the hell I want these god-awful things and they're all surprised that I wasn't expecting this.
7. You will sometimes suck as a parent. Despite all your best intentions, you will do things wrong. You'll stick your kid with diaper pins, or accidentally bang their little noggin into a doorway (they stick out a lot farther than you think when you're cradling them in your arms.) You'll overheat the formula and leave something dangerous lying around and make the bathwater too cold. You'll lose your temper and yell at your toddler, and maybe even swat his behind because you just can't stand it anymore. You'll let her eat nothing but cheese for three days because that is all she will eat without screaming for 15 solid minutes. You will forget to buy diapers or bring a change of clothing, and you will hire at least one incompetent babysitter. It happens. Not that it's good to make a habit of being forgetful, and it's a good idea to learn from your mistakes, but it's not a good idea to beat yourself up about it and lie awake at night berating yourself -- or your spouse. Neither of you are going to be getting enough sleep as it is, so forgive yourself and each other.
8. Keeping number 7 in mind, be very, very careful of how you judge another parent. The one who has a coatless three-year-old in 30 degree weather as she hustles the 20 yards into daycare? The one who gives her child melatonin at night? The one whose floor hasn't been vacuumed in months? The one who dozes on the couch for two hours while her kids watch Sesame Street? Don't judge. Especially if it's before you've given birth and tried this for yourself. There could well be a some day when you pray that nobody is watching you be a parent because you know you'd be found wanting.
9. You don't suck as bad as you think you do. If your baby has colic and does nothing but scream for 3 hours a night every damn night no matter what you do, it's not because you suck as a parent. It's because mother nature is sometimes a real bitch for no reason, and your baby just has colic. Babies come with lots of built in things, and sometimes you get an easygoing baby, and sometimes you don't. If you get the hard kind, it's not because you deserve it or that you're doing something terribly wrong. You know more than you think you do, and you're better at this than you think. Have faith.
10. Last, but not least, you will be getting a lot of advice. A LOT. You might seek it out, or have it thrust upon you by well-meaning grandmas, mothers-in-law, sisters, friends and strangers. Keep this phrase handy "Oh? Okay. Thanks for the advice. I'll keep it in mind." Then you can deep six anything you think is not for you, or just total crap. Feel free to do it now. Won't hurt my feelings a bit.
*there are parents out there who are truly awful. They do wretched things to their children out of their own mental illness, addiction or raging narcissism. If you are one of those parents then please go get help now. You can start here.
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