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Driving home from picking Bean up yesterday, I heard and felt a strange sound and just knew I’d blown a tire. Fortunately I was almost home, and it wasn’t until I turned down my street that all the air was gone. I did have to go maybe a half mile on a totally flat tire, but at least I got to my driveway. I’m sure I looked totally special ranting at the folks for taking forever to start moving at the light, as my sad little van limped along. If I had any pride left, it would have been humiliating …
I’ve identified reason #5 husbands are nice to have around. Changing tires. Hopefully my dad doesn’t mind changing my tire to my spare this morning … my totally DIY sister will undoubtedly give me no end of grief over not changing it myself, but whatevah. Besides the obvious ‘there’s no way to change a tire and manage two children safely’ argument, there’s the fact that I doubt seriously I can loosen a lug nut. And even if I could, I don’t want to. I have no need or desire to change a tire unless there’s no choice in the matter. Flat tire in my driveway = plenty of choice.
In my running tally on what husbands are good for, I have:
1. Heavy lifting (both actual physical lifting and metaphorical heavy lifting)
2. Home improvements
3. Tech support
4. Touchy-feely-stuff
5. Flat tires
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I’ve been taking some online classes. Right now I’m into one on grant writing and one on project management. PMP certification certainly wouldn’t hurt my job search, nor would a basic grasp on grant writing. The grant writing class I’m taking wasn’t very well-defined on my local continuing ed site, so I didn’t realize it was more about starting your own business than it was about the nitty-gritty of grant writing, but I can take the more how-to classes later. Or now, if I don’t feel too overwhelmed with everything. Tho honestly, I work so much better under pressure than I do in the nebulous ‘too much time’ world I live in now. My time-management skills are only effective when I have constraints, it seems. Maybe I’ll just take the other class now too …
I wish I could just get paid to take classes. I forgot how much I enjoy just learning. The note-taking, the new information, the new thought processes … I miss college a lot, at least the wide open possibilities of it. The feeling I’d get with some new classes of ‘Man, I would love to do this for a living!’ It happened a lot, probably more a symptom of my scattered brain than anything else, but at least once a semester I’d contemplate a major change because I discovered something new. I’ve always said I’d like to be a lifelong student. Unfortunately, it doesn’t pay for crap.
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Totally random thought for the day: I call Miss O Captain Jack because her walking makes me think of Jack Sparrow.
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As I was preparing to leave for my interview yesterday, Bean was asking all the what and why questions she could, including what job I was interviewing for. I tried to explain the concept of a staffing company to her, but since she can’t even grasp the whole “mommy is in charge, Bean isn’t” concept, it flew a little out of her reach.
I asked Bean what she thought I would be good at. She thought, hemmed and hawed, and said: I think you are good at poopie.
No sh*t.
When I tried for something a little more impressive, I got: I think you are good at pee-pee.
It would certainly help to downplay my qualms about public speaking, huh?
I thanked her and let her know I’d mention both skills, as I hadn’t considered listing them on the first go ’round. Sure as schneike, when I got home she asked: “Did you tell them you’re good at pee-pee and poopie?”
Bet most other kids aren’t this helpful.
I assured her that I did mention it and they were most impressed; that it put me head and shoulders above the other job seekers who hadn’t mentioned their pee-pee and poopie skill sets.
She helped further by launching an impressive Bacon Double Turdburger campaign in the morning. Miss O, ever the observant understudy in her Junior Bacon Turdburger role, spent the morning trying to convince everyone that screaming and gesturing was superior to the spoken word when it comes to getting one’s point across. So when I went to the interview, it was with a feeling of optimism about my future of full-time work and children in full-time care 
Staffing agency interviews are cool in some ways – you’re a little more natural, a little less worried about saying the wrong thing – it’s someone that gets paid when you find a job so if you’re a pretty employable person, they want you to succeed and they want to find you a position. But less cool is the ambiguity of ‘we’ll let you know if something comes up that fits your skill set’ stuff … But the interview went well enough and was good practice for being back in the working world.
So, hook me up with your favorite interview tips – or worst interview gaffes. Get me in the mood
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Since I’ve reached the point of wanting to drown myself in the washing machine, I know it’s the Thursday before a kid-free weekend. I have no doubt that I set myself up, psychologically, for a collapse of all patience and tolerance when the end is near. The light at the end of the tunnel is always a double-edged sword for me – I know that relief is coming, but since I can see it and it’s so close, I let my A-game slip down to my B- or C+ game. That makes Thursdays an exercise in frustration. Bean goes to my parents’ house and then Dave picks her up from there to spend the night at his place, so all I have to deal with from 10:00 on is Miss O’s tiny, but hissy-fit throwing, self. I’m going to have to get one of her screamy-babble-”oh-no-you-di-int” fits of film. The girl needs to start using words, and soon.
Speaking of, Miss O survived her VCUG. I’m not sure if I can say the same for her parents.
The folks there were super efficient and very good at cathing a tiny little person, but it involved strapping her down and mommy having to stand at her head and hold her hands above her head while she screamed bloody murder. Dave kept trying to distract her and I kept trying to talk her down but neither of us had any luck getting her to stop screaming. It was awful.
But there were small mercies. Like I said, the folks who did the procedure were wicked good, so they got the cath in fast and got the contrast solution in fast. They got their pictures, pulled the cath and, second small mercy, she peed everything out immediately. She was going to have to stay strapped down and screaming until she peed, and they said it could take up to 20 minutes for her to pee it out. She must have gotten the message because as soon as the cath was gone, so was the contrast solution
They offered me a dressing room to nurse in if I wanted to, but since O calmed down so quickly as soon as the straps were off, I passed. She still wouldn’t go to Dave, who came to the procedure to be there for O, but at least she wasn’t screaming. She was good enough to stay with him for a little while and allow me to go to the bathroom (toddler + public restroom = levels of yuck that make even my highly-cootie-tolerant self cringe), and then I took her over to PetSmart to see kitties. There’s little else that makes the Baby Girl as happy as kitties
This is the cat I fell in love with; and this cat was especially taken by Miss O – every time she saw O, she made biscuits or head-bonked the glass on her cage. Miss O was delighted with her, too. Not that I’m looking for another cat, but if I were, I just really want a boycat. Like Fairfax.
Miss O took a feather wand and played with all the kitties thru the glass. There were three of them, and all three were obviously grateful for both the attention and the play. Someone remind me that being a single mom of a certain age with four cats already puts me in the virtually undateable category … bumping up the cat numbers would not be improving my situation. At all.
Is it 9:45 yet?
My folks are coming over in a little bit to spend a couple hours with the girls while I go to an interview at a staffing company. Wish me luck at being able to shift gears from overtired and cranky mommy to totally employable and not at all imbalanced professional. Piece of cake. At least I’m having a morning that makes me *want* to go back to work … {sigh}
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Bean’s new word (and it’s used properly almost exclusively) is “apparently”. As in:
Mommy: Bean, what are you doing?
Bean: Eating my lamb, apparently.
Apparently so.
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Yesterday was a long day. Just long.
The pre-5:00 wake up led to a pre-9:00 nap for both girls, with both sleeping a good 1.5-2 hours. I had promised Bean that if she napped, we could go to Chuck-A-Cheese (there’s no point correcting her on the “E” part). Since she did, we did. I have like a quadrillion tokens left over from her party and other parties, so it was just the pizza cash outlay and thus a cheap date.
It started on a banner note when she freaked about the monster truck that had been, until she sat in it, her whole damn raison d’etre. Then it started, and so did the freak scene. I lifted her out, she and Miss O rode the very tame roller coaster simulator, then we ate. While we were eating, O was laughing and clapping about the bigger roller coaster simulator, so I decided to take her on it.
Cue freak scene numero dos. Bean is crying hysterically that she doesn’t want us to ride it, and figuring it would abate quickly, I just told her we were and got on. O loved it. Bean stood outside the ride and cried/screamed/yelled the entire time.
The rest of our time there was better, although watching Bean and Miss O play air hockey would have made up for just about any other badness that occurred. I had O in a high chair (oh, Bean did a mini-freak about me not putting her in one) so she could at least see the table, and they both scored points by absolute accident. I wish I’d had my camera …
Leaving Chuck-A was yet another horror scene, with Bean running away from me – at least she stayed on the sidewalk – and refusing to get in the car. I threatened to leave her, no dice. I took her beloved reindeer Clarice and what was a freak out ratcheted up to what probably looked like a full-on abduction by the time I got her in the car. She was screaming and crying, so I screamed back at her and stopped the van at a furniture store and told her she could either stop or I’d just let her out here because they had comfy beds she could take a nap in.
Not my finest moment, but she was freaking O out and my wafer-thin patience was at that point stretched to breaking. It got her to calm down enough for me to talk to her and give her logic and rationale, as well as an idea of when and how she would get Clarice back.
Like an idiot, I made another stop on the way home. And endured yet another public freak scene and this time a few judgy looks as I struggled to cope. One of the women got into some ad-magneted car advertising some granola-minded kids thing, so I’m sure she’s gone back to the other granolas and told them about the awful mom at the consignment store. I keep checking (hoping) she posts to the local AP list about me, since there’s always a handful of folks on there who feel it’s their place to make assumptions about the quality of mothers they see in public.
When you hear a mom total demean and berate their child, tell them (in so many words) they don’t like or want them, and/or really hit their kid in public, that may be an opportunity to mount your high horse and take your tiny step to your conclusions. Hell, I do it when it’s painfully obvious. But parenting Bean and trying (and often failing miserably) to be a card-carrying AP momma has taught me the value of the benefit of the doubt. Now, unless I see something egregious, my first instinct with a frazzled mom and kid that’s being a turd is “I wonder how long that kid has been acting like that?” I actually assume they’ve been rock-solid good moms all day, in the face of total turdery from their kid(s), and I just happened on the straw that broke the camel’s back.
And since O’s naps were all messed up yesterday, she was absolutely faklempt by the time the evening rolled around, and I was treated to no fewer than 5 of her latest Oscar-nominated meltdowns. We’re talking a collapse to the floor and screams that would be more apropos were I doing some sort of torture combined with all the cats ignoring her. Meltdowns that are like black holes of communication, where there is nothing verbal that can reach her. You have to stop everything, pick her up and console her. And don’t even think of putting her back down once the waterworks have shut down and she’s smiling. Dinnertime, after dinner clean up, bedtime prep and Bean’s story time are not at all conducive to the level of response that O requires when she’s reached her zenith, so her drama queen evenings just suck.
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Fortunately, today is an easy day for me. Bean has school, Dave’s taking Miss O to her urologist appointment and then keeping her and Bean tonight, and I’m attending another job-related seminar about using LinkedIn to maximize job search results. And then I believe there will be a glass of wine, a hot bath and a good night’s sleep in my future.
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There is just something obscene about a pre-5:00-wake-up. If the clock had read 5:04 instead of 4:54, I would be less annoyed. But no. It was before 5:00. And I’d already been up a good 15 minutes trying to nurse Thing 2 back to sleep when Thing 1 started with her “mommy, can you lay with me?”s
Ex-freakin’-hausting. And it’s not like I can just adjust with a cup of coffee and 30 minutes of down time. No. I spend the first hour of my morning getting up every few minutes to handle some major event. You no the kind: someone spills their snack, someone has to ask an important question, someone takes someone else’s stuffed animal. All said in a whiny-crying tone that sounds like nails on a chalkboard … stuff that even on a palmful of Valium and 12 hours sleep I’d find annoying. On no Valium and about 6 fractured hours of sleep, it’s especially annoying. I’ll be taking some extra vitamin B today, I just know it.
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I’ve mandated a nap this morning before we do anything, so wish me luck. I want to try to get them both to sleep in their room and then spend nap time getting the job thing going again. I was apathetic last night after attending a resume workshop and realizing that, while it’s not sucktastic, my resume needs work and is unlikely to get me an interview because it’s missing some components. Makes it hard to even send it in for the jobs I’m interested in. I think I’m just going to suck it up and pay someone to make it sparkle. Until then, I’m flip-flopping on “do I just send in my resume now, or wait to see if these positions are still there after my resume is fixed?”
The resume workshop guy also said that no-one reads cover letters, but you still need to have one. Ummm … frustrating. I use my cover letters to tie my experience to the job, and to inject some personality into my application. They are time consuming and sometimes difficult to write, they’re necessary, but apparently only in the check box sense: as in, cover letter? Check. Resume? Check.
Pffftttt.
After that uplifting news, here’s what I picture when I send resumes (and their seemingly worthless cover letters) into the Internet void:
I can only assume that Basement Cat is the likely recipient and that he mocks me openly before shredding my resume and worthless cover letter, putting them in his Basement Cat potty and peeing on them. Then he takes my formerly unconquerable soul and eets it fur brekfest.
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At least I have Thing 1, who cheers me with her Beanisms:
Mommy: Do Goldfish belong on the floor?
Bean: Apparently, no.
Bean: Look Mommy. I made you lemonade.
Yes you did, sweetheart. Yes you did.
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What a day.
I mentioned before that I thought my difficulties with Bean might be related to PMS … well, this week – yesterday, especially – is adding weight to my theory. I just had no patience or tolerance with her. Last week she threw stuff at me, kicked me and pulled my hair and I was like a Zen Master. Yesterday she was just being a pain-in-the-butt kid and I could have throttled her like a kazillion times. My fuse was about this long: ‘ and it was all used up by about 6:15 a.m. Even knowing I was being an unreasonable beotch with her didn’t help stem the tide. I think I need to have my hormone levels checked.
I should be writing cover letters, but I can’t get my brain into it. They seem like such a superfluous, archaic formality anymore. These days you send your resume with the click of a mouse, and it goes into the void of the Interwebz and you rarely even receive a note letting you know your resume was received. I’m going to a resume workshop today, so I’ll be sure to ask how necessary the things are anymore, although I know I’ll still include one even if the response is “not very”. I tend to kick it pretty old school on this stuff (case in point, I even bought heavyweight resume paper for the grand total of zero printed and mailed resumes I’ve submitted).
Speaking of that paper, I should probably print a couple “nice” copies to take with me in case there’s a networking opportunity today. I’m thinking of having business cards made, too, just with my name and contact info and the generic ‘writer’ as a job title. I just hate the whole networking-with-a-piece-of-paper thing … looks so cheesy. So even though I don’t have a ‘real job’, a card would just be so much more professional.
Miss O has a Gymboree trial class today … I doubt I’ll be impressed enough in one class to justify the expense, but I feel bad that she doesn’t have all the opportunities that Bean did. A big piece of it is the whole “I’m single and broke” thing, but part of it is that second-class citizenry that second (and subsequent) children just seem destined to inhabit. They have a small stretch of bonus point time when they are ‘the baby’, but once they reach toddlerhood, they’re wearing hand-me-downs and their toys are just whatever the older kid has that seems least likely to be eaten and choked on. So you do all the fluffy extracurricular stuff with kid #1, but for some reason you do less, if any, with kid #2. Like their sad little half-completed baby books, their social lives are kind of an afterthought …
Said afterthought is hovering around my chair, mooching bits of chocolate chocolate chip muffin while I multi-task. I’ll give a big shout-out for Costco muffins because they totally rock. Miss O concurs, but you’ll have to take my word for it as it sounds more like “ticka-ticka-ticka-hooo-hooo-mmmmm” than it does “I concur; these muffins are divine.”
Thankfully, it’s a school day, and I’m even getting a Miss O break when I attend the resume workshop, so it’s possible that my cantankerous and ornery self won’t be so cranky with Bean. Although the craptastic nights’ sleep I had makes it extra good it’s a school day. Miss O was up for awhile at 3 a.m. … she’d nurse down, seem like she was going to conk out, and then pop back up. At some point, I found myself lying next to Miss I with Miss O sprawled perpendicular to us and still latched on. I had and have no recall of getting us there.
In the middle of the night, when I’m all discomboobulated and cranky, the notion of just putting her in a crib and letting her cry it out has so much appeal. In the harsh light of day, though, I know I’d never really do it. It just isn’t my style. I figure she has to outgrow the frequent waking and nighttime nursing at some point, because Bast knows I’m not shacking up with her when she goes off to college!
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A conversation on the way home from school yesterday:
Mommy: Did you have fun at your friendship day party last week?
Bean. Yes. I called everyone poopie and pee-pee!
Mommy: That’s not very friendly, is it?
Bean: Yes it is. Poopie, I love you. Pee-pee, I love you.
At bedtime:
Bean: I’m a rock star!
Mommy: Yes you are. Now what stories do you want to read tonight?
Bean: I want to read “I’m a Rock Star.”
Mommy: I don’t have that book …
Bean: I’m sure you do. It’s called “I’m a Rock Star.”
I’ve been struggling to get Bean to eat veggies for a while now. For awhile she would eat peas and carrots, but not anymore. She also used to eat canned pumpkin or sweet potatoes. That’s a big fat no now. So I have to ‘sneak’ veggies in via things like Flat Earth chips and her favorite rice, that, strangely enough, has lentils and bell peppers – and she LOVES it.
So imagine my surprise last night when she asked for … salad. Yes. Salad. I eat a big Caesar salad most nights, and she was poaching some of the bacon and Parmesan I had on it. I got her a few bacon pieces of her own, and then she asked for – and ate – a small bowl of salad. So while it was just Romaine lettuce, it was a voluntary veggie serving! I have no doubt that the fickle nature of the preschooler will mean this will never happen again, but she ate a vegetable on her own – yay!! (Now, no-one tell her that lettuce is a vegetable.)
I applied to and was accepted by an alternative teaching certification program – woo-hoo! I need to accumulate 30 hours of some kind of teaching experience (can be subbing, tutoring, coaching … maybe I’ll see if I can volunteer at Bean’s school or somewhere like it …), pass a test or two (depending on how many certifications I want to get) and then get hired by a school district. I’ll be a paid intern for a year, then I’ll be fully certified.
I’m still sending out my resume for jobs that *aren’t* teaching positions, but as I watch the economy stagger and struggle, it occurs to me that teaching is a pretty safe place to land right about now.
Hold the phone – Bean just asked for salad for breakfast. I’ll be darned …
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Poor O.
She’s just a miserable ball of snot from the trifecta of one-year-molars, a viral infection and allergies. She wakes up in the morning with an eye crusted shut, a crust of snot on her nose, and dried snot smeared all over her face and hair. This morning she added a full diaper to the routine, something that transpired overnight and had hours to soak in and adhere to her tush. Somehow I didn’t really notice and attributed the smell to her post-nasal-drip breath.
Strangely enough, tho, she is just as cheerful as can be as long as I don’t commit the heinous act of trying to clean her up. Monocular vision? No problem. Irritated cheeks from a generous coating of snot? Doesn’t phase her. Hair stuck together or to her face because of the aforementioned coating of snot? It adds character. A diaper full of teething poop? It’s cool. Mommy with a wet rag and a new diaper? Oh hail no. Commence CPS-worthy screaming and tears cascading down the snotty cheeks. At least it helps open up the crusty eye … But it also makes it damn near impossible to get her antibiotic eye drops in.
Single mom + sick baby in need of eye drops = mission impossible.
Oh, wait. According to Dave, I can’t even call myself a single mom because I’m not working. So since there is obviously more than one of me, I’ll get Me #2 to hold O’s arms and keep her still the next time Me #1 tries to pry her eyes open to get the drops in. Problem solved. Phew.
I’m reading a book called “The Courage to Be a Single Mother” and finding it really inspirational. It’s not really told me anything I don’t know yet, but it is underscoring a lot of the excitement and hope I’ve been feeling lately. I’m back to feeling this underlying current of limitless possibilities, and I love the feeling. I’m starting to get truly excited about the me-side of going back to work. I still hate the kid-side (full-time care and not being with me as much), but since it’s unavoidable, I’m kind of just ignoring that because, truthfully, what can I do to change it?
I’m trying to decide how to handle this blog when I job search. A friend pointed out that nowadays employers will search names online to see what comes up. When you Google search my name, this blog doesn’t come up – the only thing that comes up is my LinkedIn profile. But if you go to Facebook, I’m there, and I’ve linked my blog to Facebook.
So I can edit or go private with the blog. I’ve toyed with going private, but I like that this is just an open thing for anyone to read. One thought I had was just making it anonymous on a new site.
Ugh. I miss the old days of handing in a resume to a real person, instead of posting it into the void and never hearing back, but knowing that you’ve probably been Googled anyways. And no-one bought you dinner first.
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A 5:30 a.m. Beanism:
Bean: “Daddy says I’m delicate”
Me: “Do you know what delicate means?”
Bean: “No. What does it mean?”
Me: “It means soft, and fragile”
Bean: “Actually, it means don’t pull my hair.”
Oddly enough, it’s okay for Bean to sit on Miss O and bounce up and down, but it is *not* okay for Miss O to pull Bean’s hair.
Heard later this morning, as the girls were playing and Miss O whacked Miss I:
“She smacked me! That is not okay. You take a time out Miss O!”
(I will tell her “that is not okay” sometimes, when she’s ignoring me or when she’s rough with her sister)
New Miss O videos
Sittin’ and talkin’
Exersaucer time
More chatter
Time is just flying by with her. She’s pulling up on stuff (and I need to change the crib set up pretty darn soon, as a result), she eats 2-3 “meals” a day of cereal + fruit or veggies, she self-feeds little puffs. She turned 8 months old on Monday … I can’t believe what a big girl she is already!
I’m doing well. The girls have been up around 5 a.m. for the past few days, so I’m a bit tired and a little ornery at times, but otherwise, I’m good I’ve been really focusing on getting myself in a good place mentally, and on being the mom I want to be. Neither happens all the time, but both are far more frequent these days than the negative alternatives.
Lyrics from Social Distortion’s “Story of My Life“
Both girls are conspiring against me today in a nap boycott, so I’ve parked them in front of Baby Einstein to get a small sanity break. If Miss O were just a bit older, I might seriously consider getting a real job – these are long-ass days sometimes!!
Speaking of a job, I need someone to motivate me. Seriously, kick me in the ass and make me get moving forward. I keep getting mired in all this divorce crap and even though I know I need to be focusing on getting my writing career going so I really have a shot at not returning to full-time work outside the home. And, it would be really nice to be better off – financially and personally – in a couple years. One of my good friends’ husbands has offered to each me some web page design stuff, too, and I cannot motivate my lazy tookus to take him up on that, either.
I really want to be in a position to be able to take the girls to Disney in a few years. And to be able to take them on small trips here and there. And, honestly, I want to be in a position where it’s okay if it’s always just the girls and I. I’m not looking for another relationship any time soon (unless Brett Favre or David Boreanaz are left by their wives and come looking for me), and even when I am ready, it’s not going to be easy to find someone I trust enough to bring around the girls. So it’s very likely I’ll be flying solo for a few years; it’s not like I’d be looking for a mate based on what he could bring to the relationship financially, anyways, but if it’s gonna be just one income, I’d like it to be a good income
But I just can’t seem to motivate myself to actually *do* anything … yeah, I sent out a few resumes into the Craigslist/Internet void, but what I really need to write are magazine queries. I have an idea and I need to pitch it, but I can’t get myself to do it. What the hell is wrong with me??
Lyrics from Good Charlotte’s “Motivation Proclamation“
