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Archive for January, 2008

Conflicts

Thursday, January 31st, 2008

Yes, I know it’s been a while.  I’ve been busy, most recently with the decision to get a job.

I had an interview for a position that is interesting, thought-provoking and inspiring.  The only downsides are that the pay is minimal (base pay is anyhow) and that it would require kicking Pudding out of the house and into daycare.  Since the base pay is so small it won’t allow for someone to come in and watch him.

Either way, the Pudding issue is the one that is causing me sleepless nights and irritated stomach lining.   I love this job offer but I am really not thrilled with the idea of leaving him in someone else’s care just yet.  I know that other mothers have done it and the kids have been fine.  And that’s great for them. Me, I’m freaking out.

When I got pregnant with Punksin, TG and I discussed it and decided that we wanted one of us to be the primary caregiver for our child.  The horror stories, the financial outlay, the idea of seeing our daughter mainly on evenings and weekends, none of it was attractive to us.  Far from being liberating, the whole idea of turning my 3-month old over to someone else for what would be the majority of her waking hours made me physically ill.  And it’s doing the same now.

However, the conflicted feeling is worse now too.  With Punksin, I was just leaving a horrid boss and the idea of being home was fresh and I actually relished the rest and rejuvenation it would bring.  Now, I’ve already been home for 4 years and while I’m not itching to be out of the house, I’m itching for my own income and a life that consists of more than being a chauffeur for my children.  But with that, the guilt comes in because I think that if I was home with Punksin, how can I give Pudding any less?  Why should I subject him to outside care when I didn’t do it with Punksin?

He hasn’t made my choice any easier.  The night before I interviewed for the position he started making “mamamamamama” sounds.  Not necessarily directed at me, my mind knows, but the heart insists on being tugged.  And when I went for the interview, the noise he kept at my girlfriend’s house can only be described Biblically as “much wailing and gnashing of teeth.” I could hear him as I approached the door.  It was horrible.  (Which reminds me, I really owe her something…)

I had so little clue, when I first got pregnant, that being a hands-on mother and an educated professional woman with ambition would have to be so goddamn mutually exclusive.

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It’s 10 PM, Do You Know Where Your Cookies Are?

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

Okay, if anyone has been reading this with any regularity, you know that I am stuck in a rut when it comes to removing the final 6-8 pregger pounds from my frame. You know this.

More importantly, I know this.

So can anyone tell me why I am scarfing down Chips Ahoy at 9:55 at night? Please?

My only defense is that I didn’t really know, until just now, that it was so late.

Don’t worry. I’m well aware of precisely how lame that excuse is. It’s sort of like the crackhead saying he didn’t know the toddler he was selling for crack money was his own kid – not really defensible, you know?

Maybe I need to give myself a deadline to get this lard off. I looked at my butt and thighs in the mirror and let me tell you, a dimpled face is adorable but a dimpled ass? Not so cute. (Well, Pudding has a cute dimpled ass but he’s 6 months old.)

I have considered dieting but don’t really want to get too deep into that. I’m still nursing, for one. For two (no one says “for two” but I’m going to), I have never ever dieted in my life. South Beach, North Beach, Atkins, Zone, none of that crap. Definitely not the one an ex’s mother did where she only ate one thing a day, usually fruit, for several days. One day pineapple, the next day papaya, the next day corn or whatever, until she nearly passed out from the sheer fucking stupidity of it. She did lose the weight, but her mind was right behind it. And of course she gained it all back once she stopped. I can’t do that madness.

I watch what I eat now (chocolate chip cookies notwithstanding) not because of weight but because of overall health. We’ve grown more conscious of the fuel we’re putting into our bodies and the kids’ bodies, so we try to do organic foods and eat less gargantuan portions than we grew up seeing, cook with olive oil a lot, that kind of stuff. There’s still a lot more we could do, granted, but hey, it’s a work in progress.

Meanwhile, this last set of poundage is killing me. It’s just enough to prevent the majority of my pants from squeezing over my extended hips. I’ve gone from curvy to oblong.

I need to get back in the gym pronto. I froze my gym membership because I was waiting for Pudding to hit 6 months, since that’s when I can utilize the babysitting services. Then, Punksin changed schools and now the gym is in the exact opposite direction of where I’m going several times a week, so we figured we’d change gyms to the Y right across the street from her school once the first year was up.

I can still do that, but I can’t wait until then to deal with this. That’s March. I can’t wait that long. There’s too many cookies and strudels and pies between now and March. And then I’ll be busting my ass to look decent for summer.

So tomorrow I am going to unfreeze the membership and get my ass (and the rest of me) on some kind of plan. I have no idea how I am going to fit that in to my already tight schedule, but it has to work out somehow.

Wish me luck.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Thanks for…

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

I haven’t done my Thankful post recently, although it’s been on my mind. I don’t have the longest list today, but here it is:

I’m thankful for our cousin Sadia and her mom, Juana. These are cousins on my husband’s side, Juana being his dad’s sister. Sadia lives on the West Coast and was out here for work recently and visited with us for one night. She had to leave extremely early the following morning and when I got up I actually missed her.

You have no idea how big this is. No idea.

She and her mom are just so cool. They’re fun, intelligent, and accomplished. We first met them at our wedding, oddly enough, and I am eternally happy that they came and that we were able to strike up a relationship with them. Juana is a wonderful aunt – young enough to be fun, energetic, and a contemporary, but just older enough for us to turn to her for advice and respect her points of view. I’m thankful for the times I’ve been able to reach out to her in varying situations, and doubly thankful that my husband has been able to talk to her – especially about the parasites from the previous post – and get her no-nonsense advice too. She pulls no punches, tells you exactly what she thinks, and I respect that.

Sadia, I wish we’d gotten to hang out with her more before we were parents. But even when she came over here, she was wonderful at putting Punksin to bed, got in the bed with her and read her a story and Pudding was as excited as could be. She’s just fabulous. (And she works at YouTube; you should check her out here.)

When Tech Guru and I were trying to think of what people we’d approach to be Pudding’s godparents, we had to think long and hard. We’d exhausted most of the options with Punksin, we didn’t want to have the same people fill that role for both, and yet we couldn’t think of people we were close enough to. Then one day while I was loading the dishwasher – a lot of good ideas seem to come to me as I load the dishwasher – it hit me – Sadia! She was perfect, and Tech Guru immediately agreed. She epitomizes all that we want both of our children to be as they grow up and when they grow up: smart, witty, ambitious, intelligent, confident but not conceited, and global.

So thank God for her. I was planning to say thanks for them both anyhow because they’re really cool people, but in light of the previous post, my gratefulness has multiplied. Thank you, God and the universe, for these two wonderful relatives of ours. May we be as good for them as they are for us.

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Yes, I know it’s been a while.  I’ve been busy, most recently with the decision to get a job.

I had an interview for a position that is interesting, thought-provoking and inspiring.  The only downsides are that the pay is minimal (base pay is anyhow) and that it would require kicking Pudding out of the house and into daycare.  Since the base pay is so small it won’t allow for someone to come in and watch him.

Either way, the Pudding issue is the one that is causing me sleepless nights and irritated stomach lining.   I love this job offer but I am really not thrilled with the idea of leaving him in someone else’s care just yet.  I know that other mothers have done it and the kids have been fine.  And that’s great for them. Me, I’m freaking out.

When I got pregnant with Punksin, TG and I discussed it and decided that we wanted one of us to be the primary caregiver for our child.  The horror stories, the financial outlay, the idea of seeing our daughter mainly on evenings and weekends, none of it was attractive to us.  Far from being liberating, the whole idea of turning my 3-month old over to someone else for what would be the majority of her waking hours made me physically ill.  And it’s doing the same now.

However, the conflicted feeling is worse now too.  With Punksin, I was just leaving a horrid boss and the idea of being home was fresh and I actually relished the rest and rejuvenation it would bring.  Now, I’ve already been home for 4 years and while I’m not itching to be out of the house, I’m itching for my own income and a life that consists of more than being a chauffeur for my children.  But with that, the guilt comes in because I think that if I was home with Punksin, how can I give Pudding any less?  Why should I subject him to outside care when I didn’t do it with Punksin?

He hasn’t made my choice any easier.  The night before I interviewed for the position he started making “mamamamamama” sounds.  Not necessarily directed at me, my mind knows, but the heart insists on being tugged.  And when I went for the interview, the noise he kept at my girlfriend’s house can only be described Biblically as “much wailing and gnashing of teeth.” I could hear him as I approached the door.  It was horrible.  (Which reminds me, I really owe her something…)

I had so little clue, when I first got pregnant, that being a hands-on mother and an educated professional woman with ambition would have to be so goddamn mutually exclusive.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

It’s 10 PM, Do You Know Where Your Cookies Are?

January 15th, 2008

Okay, if anyone has been reading this with any regularity, you know that I am stuck in a rut when it comes to removing the final 6-8 pregger pounds from my frame. You know this.

More importantly, I know this.

So can anyone tell me why I am scarfing down Chips Ahoy at 9:55 at night? Please?

My only defense is that I didn’t really know, until just now, that it was so late.

Don’t worry. I’m well aware of precisely how lame that excuse is. It’s sort of like the crackhead saying he didn’t know the toddler he was selling for crack money was his own kid – not really defensible, you know?

Maybe I need to give myself a deadline to get this lard off. I looked at my butt and thighs in the mirror and let me tell you, a dimpled face is adorable but a dimpled ass? Not so cute. (Well, Pudding has a cute dimpled ass but he’s 6 months old.)

I have considered dieting but don’t really want to get too deep into that. I’m still nursing, for one. For two (no one says “for two” but I’m going to), I have never ever dieted in my life. South Beach, North Beach, Atkins, Zone, none of that crap. Definitely not the one an ex’s mother did where she only ate one thing a day, usually fruit, for several days. One day pineapple, the next day papaya, the next day corn or whatever, until she nearly passed out from the sheer fucking stupidity of it. She did lose the weight, but her mind was right behind it. And of course she gained it all back once she stopped. I can’t do that madness.

I watch what I eat now (chocolate chip cookies notwithstanding) not because of weight but because of overall health. We’ve grown more conscious of the fuel we’re putting into our bodies and the kids’ bodies, so we try to do organic foods and eat less gargantuan portions than we grew up seeing, cook with olive oil a lot, that kind of stuff. There’s still a lot more we could do, granted, but hey, it’s a work in progress.

Meanwhile, this last set of poundage is killing me. It’s just enough to prevent the majority of my pants from squeezing over my extended hips. I’ve gone from curvy to oblong.

I need to get back in the gym pronto. I froze my gym membership because I was waiting for Pudding to hit 6 months, since that’s when I can utilize the babysitting services. Then, Punksin changed schools and now the gym is in the exact opposite direction of where I’m going several times a week, so we figured we’d change gyms to the Y right across the street from her school once the first year was up.

I can still do that, but I can’t wait until then to deal with this. That’s March. I can’t wait that long. There’s too many cookies and strudels and pies between now and March. And then I’ll be busting my ass to look decent for summer.

So tomorrow I am going to unfreeze the membership and get my ass (and the rest of me) on some kind of plan. I have no idea how I am going to fit that in to my already tight schedule, but it has to work out somehow.

Wish me luck.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Thanks for…

January 15th, 2008

I haven’t done my Thankful post recently, although it’s been on my mind. I don’t have the longest list today, but here it is:

I’m thankful for our cousin Sadia and her mom, Juana. These are cousins on my husband’s side, Juana being his dad’s sister. Sadia lives on the West Coast and was out here for work recently and visited with us for one night. She had to leave extremely early the following morning and when I got up I actually missed her.

You have no idea how big this is. No idea.

She and her mom are just so cool. They’re fun, intelligent, and accomplished. We first met them at our wedding, oddly enough, and I am eternally happy that they came and that we were able to strike up a relationship with them. Juana is a wonderful aunt – young enough to be fun, energetic, and a contemporary, but just older enough for us to turn to her for advice and respect her points of view. I’m thankful for the times I’ve been able to reach out to her in varying situations, and doubly thankful that my husband has been able to talk to her – especially about the parasites from the previous post – and get her no-nonsense advice too. She pulls no punches, tells you exactly what she thinks, and I respect that.

Sadia, I wish we’d gotten to hang out with her more before we were parents. But even when she came over here, she was wonderful at putting Punksin to bed, got in the bed with her and read her a story and Pudding was as excited as could be. She’s just fabulous. (And she works at YouTube; you should check her out here.)

When Tech Guru and I were trying to think of what people we’d approach to be Pudding’s godparents, we had to think long and hard. We’d exhausted most of the options with Punksin, we didn’t want to have the same people fill that role for both, and yet we couldn’t think of people we were close enough to. Then one day while I was loading the dishwasher – a lot of good ideas seem to come to me as I load the dishwasher – it hit me – Sadia! She was perfect, and Tech Guru immediately agreed. She epitomizes all that we want both of our children to be as they grow up and when they grow up: smart, witty, ambitious, intelligent, confident but not conceited, and global.

So thank God for her. I was planning to say thanks for them both anyhow because they’re really cool people, but in light of the previous post, my gratefulness has multiplied. Thank you, God and the universe, for these two wonderful relatives of ours. May we be as good for them as they are for us.

Tags: , ,
Posted in The Fam | No Comments »

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