When we talk of heroes, I imagine people doing big, important things, of the lifesaving variety.
I grew up on dramatic heroics, capes and cowls, and icons like Amelia Earhart,Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman. People who stand up to the whole world, sometimes against unspeakable odds, and changed the world long after they were told to sit down and be quiet.
This video brought unabashed tears to my eyes and got me thinking. It’s not often that we get to see the results of our good deeds for others, if at all, but it’s the rare person who hasn’t benefited from the help of others who never expected thanks in return.
These are a few people who made a bigger difference in my life than they knew.
Bus driver #1
Randy was driving the last route of the night and, as usual, I had lost track of time. Running out into the deserted street, in the dark, in a bad neighborhood, I leapt onto the bus’s steps, making him jump. I made it!
But I hadn’t. He’d just returned from the last drop-off. When he understood why my face fell, he swung into rescue mode and stomped the gas pedal all the way to the nearest train stop. I thanked him profusely as I ran for the train. I never got to thank him in person after that – he stopped driving that route soon after.
Bus Driver #2
The second driver, Johnny, was driving my regular route during a particularly bad time in my life. Everything was falling apart. Mom’s illness had suddenly progressed, leaving a Bizarro Mom in our house, and my bosses had gone ’round the bend. Things were bad bad bad but I still needed that job. Every morning, I tried to breathe deeply to make it through another day, and held back a surge of stress-induced nausea. Johnny would drop us off, booming: Have a good day and don’t let anybody steal your joy!
It always made me smile. It was often my only smile of those working days, and I was grateful.
Mentor, Codename Sabrina
I’d worked several years years of retail by the time I started on my first industry-job but I was still a young pup in the white collar professional world.
My introduction to office life was tumultuous. It was rife with poor management and terrible people, and directly led to my discovery of Alison at Ask A Manager (Googling “is [terrible boss thing] normal?”).
There was one person I met in the course of that work who made it survivable. She was an institution at her job, working with us from her coordinating office, and she taught me so much I needed to know to succeed at my job and more. Without her almost daily feedback and steering, and diplomacy when our managers were being even more unreasonable than usual, I’m not sure if I would have overcome the many and barbed hurdles thrown up by my direct colleagues and managers.
With it, I went on to be a high performer both in that office and well into the rest of my career.
We kept in touch over the years, and I’ve always been grateful for her friendship, wisdom, and warmth.
:: To whom do you owe thanks? Why? What little things made a difference in your life? Tell me your stories?
MTurk experiment, total earned: $44.05. Up $31.40 from May’s ending total of $12.65. As money making experiments go, this continues to be teensy tiny beans. I use it in the few minutes a day I designate for my (non-existent otherwise) water cooler breaks so no harm done. Gives my brain a breather from the problems I’m working on and makes, literally, a few bucks.
Last month’s big news: We spent money and 6 long months to finally refinance the mortgage. Ahoy, the prepayment scheme! I’m really excited about that. That, and cutting our mortgage in half so that the second half of our mortgage payment all goes to principal. DELICIOUS. We’re under $250K now, and I’m eagerly targeting when we’ll be under $200K.
Last month’s other big news: We finally bought a new to us car. After maintenance and accessories (which sounds so fancy but really isn’t), we are out a couple thousand dollars. For that price, we can FINALLY get around without plotting logistics on a chart.
I keep forgetting that our crockpot broke a couple months ago after rendering unto us, in its last faithful service, producing fantastic ribs for our dinner guests. I know it’s “only” $30-40 to replace it but given our pile of other necessary expenses that add up very quickly, and *points up* that list of spending these past two months, I’m extra not ready to spend a penny more. The crockpot recipes must continue to pile up for now. Even that mac and cheese one. *sniff*
I continue to be not surprised, but surprisingly irritated, by the fact that Dad is behind on his utility payments. He insisted that he could take them on three years ago (four? I can’t remember now) but I didn’t totally trust him so I kept online access to the accounts. Sure enough, when I logged in to the water and electricity bills, they were glaringly overdue. Think he said anything to me? Gave me any warning that he was struggling with them? History repeats itself. So we’re sinking an unbudgeted $100-300 in utility bills every few months because he simply can’t do me the courtesy of talking through the income shortage with me.
Highlights of my #1GoodMoneyThing this month: I bought stocks instead of stuff which are dropping like rocks thanks to Brexit but I’m buying long; deposited reimbursement checks for various reimbursable things; returned two baby carriers to Amazon because PiC found a decent one for $50 on Craigslist!
We’ve been holding a lot of cash because I have a problem. An addiction, almost, to keeping cash on hand. Left over insecurity from that long layoff? Maybe. But it was time to get off my bum and move cash into our investments. I don’t want our eggs too heavily in any one basket. Overall, most of our savings go into pre and post-tax investment accounts, and real estate, there to grow and multiply, we hope.
Depending on how it goes, you might wish it had, but it won’t.
Spoiler Alert: We survived flying with an active, task oriented, curious, very mobile toddler!
We took two trips this year that required flying, changing time zones for one. The flights ranged from pretty good to Are we there, yet??
We flew Alaska Air for the first time in a decade, and discovered they were both pretty infant-friendly, and had a nifty 20-minute baggage guarantee that meant we waited zero time at baggage claim. I LOVED that. There were no other children on our Alaska Air flights but the flight attendants were actively engaged with us as parents, and offered us coloring books and crayons. They also encouraged us to belt JuggerLB in when appropriate, reassuring us that safety was more important than avoiding crying. All of that was really helpful in calming my slight case of nerves since it was our first flight and I didn’t know how ze would react to all of it. This flight was only about three hours so it was a useful data point in seeing how an airline might handle parents flying with children, and how JuggerLB handled travel.
We then crossed time zones with United, which had no baggage delivery guarantee, but was pretty quick. On the flip side, they misplaced our stroller for a while, and that gave us a bit of a scare. They weren’t actively unfriendly towards kids, but they definitely didn’t have anything for them either. While we were prepared to entertain JuggerLB, every little bit helps.
Booking midday and midweek flights
At this stage of life, I’m finally all about the Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday flights.
We flew with JuggerLB as a lap infant but since the midday and midweek flight was only partly full, the flight attendants shuffled seat assignments to make sure we had a seat for hir anyway. As long as we didn’t get the absolute back row, we didn’t care where they put us. On Alaska, at least, it seemed to be such a routine thing they didn’t even mention it to us. The drawback of booking a midday flight is that it cuts into both morning and afternoon naps, and for a shorter flight, JuggerLB isn’t about to sleep and miss a minute of travel fun.
Getting to our destination with plenty of daylight, whether in a new city or getting back home, was a new and delightful change. We typically get in late at night when we travel and I much prefer the midday arrival. We had time to settle in and have a leisurely dinner without cutting into a full night’s rest.
Things I found especially useful
For quiet play, I left all the chiming or electronic toys at home. Instead, we packed board books, plastic rings, colorful window clings. Your mileage may vary from airline to airline but on one flight, we were offered a small box of crayons and coloring book which we happily accepted, and everyone was given snacks and drinks in plastic cups which came in very handy for more toddler distraction.
We packed multipurpose washcloths for cleaning up spills, to hold taut and form a pretend tray for LB to stack toys on, and save my clothes from sticky accidents. Drool bibs were a must because a teething toddler is drippy drooly, empty water bottles doubled as toys, and hir velcro tabbed shoes were entertainment for a solid ten minutes at a time.
We had our own snack bag: crackers, pretzels and cheese, raisins and pre-cut fruit all staved off the hunger between milk sessions. Ze was being weaned off bottles for our first set of flights but travel was not the time to be fussing about cups with those uncoordinated hands. SFO TSA was remarkably efficient, by the by, they simply sent us through with hir, and scanned all hir liquids, the stroller, and the car seat, and even helped me carry the car seat over to our pile of stuff after the security check. Pleasant and helpful – never knew they could be so good!
Plastic baggies were huge time-savers. I stored clean clothes, extra empty bottles, diapers and wipes, and medicine in them. When things spilled, as they do, the wet stuff went into the plastic bag and we moved right along.
First flight recap
LB was bouncy-excited about a plane full of hostages to hir. They were all in one place and couldn’t escape!
We were lucky, the flight attendants were already rearranging the passengers for weight distribution so they graciously made sure that we had an extra seat for LB. Wonderful surprise! We did lots of in-seat play, focusing on keeping hir attention on us and our games, taking advantage of that third seat to move more freely and keep toys on the seats. Ze zeroed in on rearranging the seat back reading material for at least 20-40 minutes, so we were scrupulously careful about not letting hir actually touch the seat back. The people in front of us weren’t crankypants and giving us the evil eye to begin with, like some child-haters do, and we weren’t about to give anyone cause for it.
When the wiggly was uncontainable, the two of them did lots of walking up and down the aisle, waving and smiling. Ze made a friend of most people with hir smiles, and more probably with hir generally quiet play. I think ze hollered in excitement about three times and cried once. But ze completely missed takeoff and landing, impervious to the pressure changes, and may that forever be the case.
Second flight recap
We did all in-seat play, due to unexpected turbulence, but we had a few unlooked for perks. The plane wasn’t full, again, so the attendants rearranged seating to give hir a seat which the person in our row was offering to do (random nice people!) when he thought we’d been separated, AND the middle seat in front of us was empty. That meant we could let hir play with the seat back materials and also use the tray. We don’t let hir use or touch the trays if people are in the seat. Ze likes to bang things on the tray, or bang it up and down, and that’s just rude.
We thought we needed the iPad but we never even got to most of hir regular toys because ze was having so much fun pulling out the safety cards and rearranging them. I’d brought some cool window clings that ze didn’t quite know what to do with so we spent half an hour with me placing them on the window and hir removing them. Those things probably won’t be able to cling to anything ever again.
Third flight recap
I felt like a terrible parent when we realized that ze was having teething pain after we took off. Ze has never noticed take off or landing, I should mention, so far ze has had good luck with the change in pressure. May that always be the case! Since ze hadn’t been drooling or teething for a few days, I’d packed up all hir medications and checked the bag. ERROR. I won’t be making that mistake again! An hour into the flight, ze was huddled, miserable and feverish, and in need of Motrin.
We lucked out in sitting near a lovely family with an infant of their own, and who hadn’t foolishly checked in their medications so they gave us their travel bottle. I offered to pay or replace it but they waved me off. It’s amazing how nice some people can be.
We had some trouble getting hir to take all the meds but the side effect of hir discomfort was that ze took two catnaps on the long flight. That’s totally abnormal and was clearly because ze wasn’t feeling well but it got us through the flight somewhat less exhausted than if we’d had to entertain hir for the full 5 hours.
Fourth flight recap
No such mercy on this flight, though. Not that I’m wishing JuggerBaby was sick, even if ze is easier when sick. I just hoped that ze would have found it old hat enough at this point to relax and nap. Instead, ze played hard and grouched harder. There was some crying on this flight, and that sucked. We took it in turns to play, feed, and distract hir, wishing heartily for time to pass faster.
Obviously we made it back safely and each in our respective pieces but you couldn’t have sighed a bigger sigh of relief than we did once ze was fed, clean, and put to bed. HOME SWEET HOME.
:: Do you find flying stressful? What makes it easier?
We’ve got a lovely neighbor who is genuinely happy to take JuggerBaby for 10-20 minutes if we need, probably longer if we asked, in the evenings. We’ve exchanged kids a few times now, her family is great with JuggerBaby and ze is totally into hanging out with them. Ze isn’t in the least bit shy of running up and demanding a snack. (The well trained kid in me groans at this imposition. But we are happy to feed their little guy when he asks for a snack so fair’s fair?) Their little guy is much older but he loves the company of anyone at any age, so he’s hung out with us a few times too, sans parents, and he’s hugely entertaining when he’s not running around in circles.
It’d be the perfect arrangement but alas, they’re only here for a little while. It’s hard to find people we consider a good fit: trustworthy, patient and firm, very reasonable, willing to tell a child “no”, and just easy to get along with. We’ll stay in touch, I’m sure, but they won’t be just on the same block anymore and sometimes, we just need a hand from someone who can be there without a long commute or scheduling two weeks in advance.
I mentioned earlier that we found babysitters – yaaayy! But they are only available the occasional Saturday and run at least $25/hour – OUCH.
We’d originally imagined babysitting to be the solution of buying ourselves some free time, some guilt free time, where we happily paid someone to help out with JuggerBaby for an hour or two to do something for ourselves or just get some work done. It’s tough when we’re both timing almost everything on the weekend for hir naps. It’s even tougher staring down the barrel of hir phasing out the second nap. (Say it ain’t so!)
We work at making sure PiC gets his gym time, that’s as important to his mental health as my quiet no-people time is to mine. Thus far, I’ve gotten by with thinking of daycare days as double duty days: It’s when I get my quiet me-time, and I get all my work done.
Once in a while I think wistfully of a time when I wasn’t on the dog or the baby’s schedule. Mostly, I think I’m as rested as I can be given health issues, and as fulfilled on a personal level as I need to be, right now, but eventually I’d like a little bit more. Nothing scheduled, I hate the commitment of taking weekly classes. Just the odd hour once or twice a month where I am solely committed to just doing whatever I want.
I don’t want to say that it’s entirely down to JuggerBaby that we don’t get our time, in that blamey kind of way, because I don’t resent it. The reality is we chose to have a human puppy. That’s fine, it brings a whole load of work and compensates with fun and laughter and snot and drool. It’s relatively even. But ze just happens to be the reason this period carries extra scheduling challenges.
I know this is a problem everyone has to some extent with their families, friends, work, and all their other obligations.
:: Do you get enough time to yourself? How do you carve out time for yourself? Do you prioritize alone time and social time?
I leaned back against the side of hir crib as ze stealthily, unsteadily, inched away from me, leading with hands gripping bar by bar, heading for the opposite wall. No idea what ze was after. I couldn’t see from my position and I wasn’t trying. It was easier to peep through the bars and catch hir eye, then dramatically fail to hide behind this crib bar or that slat. Ze took the bait, reversing course, shaking with increasing ebullience after each of my faked gasps of horror.
A baby predator, more enthusiastic than skilled, catching the scent of weakness and running it to ground with cackles like fireworks, bright bursts of delight, a lopsided grin showcasing nearly five Tic Tac teeth. Dropping to all fours on final approach, ze menaced me like a tiny tiny bull, bobbing forward, backward, threatening to leap and smother me in drool and laughter.
Ze dissolved into uncontrollable chortles and I want it to last forever.
Who’s the boss?!
Ze clambers up, heedless of danger to life or limb, to plop into our laps or atop our legs with a book in hand, imperiously opening it to a page, and pushing it up to our faces with an insistent “‘ey!”
Read it to me!
When we’re both in the same room, ze insists that we share reading duties. I read one page, ze takes the book away and places it in PiC’s hand. He reads a page and a half, ze switches again.
I think ze learned this from Seamus. He used to insist on specific turn-taking when we played, too.
Temple of Doom
After an 11 hour daycare stint, I braced for impact. LB loves the place but an 11 hour day of playing and socializing with, in all likelihood, no more than a one hour nap had the potential to end in tears (hirs) and bruises (ours). This wise mama had dinner ready by the time they walked in the door, and what a grin it was on that child’s face when we said hello. It was hardly believable but not pushing our luck, we quickly started to feed the beast. Not quick enough. Within several bites, and ten minutes, the excitement of the day came crashing down, and ze flopped over sideways in hir chair, trying to navigate a spoonful of mashed potatoes into hir mouth, piteously crying. Considering hir aim when upright, that effort was doomed.
Ze sat up abruptly and alternately stretched out hir arms to me and yelling at PiC “Ma-ma! Pa-pa!” while he went for the bedtime bottle.
Once freed from the confines of the high chair, ze was all grins again, cackling for peek-a-boo and stood to dance in the bath when the joy was too much. Best moments of the night, I thought.
Dressed and damp, we three laid on the bed together, Seamus stretched alongside the bed to complete our set, and ze drank hir bottle. We normally put hir to bed solo, freeing the other parent to spend a few minutes cleaning up but it’d been a long day.
Hir drinking flagged, tiny fists curled around the bottle drooping lower and lower until I lent a supporting hand. The “enough!” push back never came. Ze drained the bottle but gripped it tighter. Tentatively, PiC produced a second bottle and we tried to extract the first but ze grabbed it back with both hands, insistently. We tried again. This time, the second bottle slid in place the split second after the first was released and success!
Then I realize we’re celebrating the tricking of a one year old so that does a little number on the self esteem. But only for a minute.
:: Do you triumph over children? Are you a mess when you’re tired or hungry?
A closet catastrophe in search of style with comfort
I read Katherine’s post on dressing as a new mom with a tinge of guilt. Never a fashion plate, I took some meanhearted comments about baby weight heard when I was still pregnant too much to heart, and went far in the opposite direction of refusing to give a hoot about worrying over dressing well when I had a baby to keep alive, a career to also keep alive, and so on. “Getting dressed” didn’t mean very much more than changing from one set of comfy pajamas to the next, on harder days, and into cargo pants and tees on the easier ones.
There’s a happy medium between not caring about how you look and being obsessed with your appearance to the exclusion of all substantive things. My life fits in the middle, caring when it matters to me, and leaving it the rest of the time, but I’d left that by the wayside.
The casual nature of my job didn’t help. The SF-standard CEO in tee-shirts and flipflops isn’t just a stereotype! To make matters worse, I’m digging through a wardrobe that still has clothes dating back to 1999. Because I might go somewhere warm again, someday! And it still fits! And… no, that doesn’t mean I should still wear them. For someone who came from having very little, discarding things that still “work” is a hard notion to wrap my head around.
Now that I’m out walking more, dressing down and even sloppily is my camouflage, protection against the street harassment. I can’t walk across the street with LB alone without being harassed, and this isn’t one of the worst neighborhoods in town.
I’ll keep dressing in “ugly” camo for those jaunts because life is too busy to waste time wishing fiery deaths upon that worthless scum that catcalls, stalks and harasses women on the street. For the rest of the time, though…
An essential part of being a professional, secondary to high performance, is presenting myself professionally.
It’s time to shape up. It’s never been easy to put together a wardrobe that looks professional but can be worn day to day. Like Cloud, I’ve never had lofty ambitions in the fashion arena. I don’t need to be fashionable, I need to be not frumpy. Finding where that coincides with my need for comfort and low maintenance level, is the challenge.
I’m starting the process by ruthlessly digging out the sartorial deadweight.
Those old sweaters that I bought back when I was cold all the time and was just desperate for warmth, any warmth. Like a bear facing winter, I was adding layers with cardigans that did the job but nothing for my appearance. Same for the long sleeve shirts that are now too tight in the arms. PSA: Lifting a 25 lb weight between 1-6 hours a day will do something to your biceps. I’m guessing that Hulking out of my sleeves isn’t the current look. But whatever the look is, I like my blood circulating, thank you very much.
Pants are problematic. I’m staring down a pile of pants, they’re all a little bit off. Those jeans are 19 years old and look like it. These jeans are a breath too tight. The newest pair of jeans are too long and loose. The older jeans are tight but the right length. It feels like the best thing to do would be to toss all the oldest and start over but I can’t bring myself to do that. I don’t have a good replacement yet and I’ve learned the hard way not to go purging willy-nilly. As Donna and her commenters pointed out, ever so timely with this post, it’s not a good idea to go overboard. Then again, I have a bit of history with breaking my pants with new jobs. It’d be better to lose an old pair than new when I move on!
There are about a dozen geeky tees that I refuse to let go of. These have a place in my life but we need to do better. This has sparked the thought that I need to design a business casual line of geek-inspired clothing to replace the geeky tees that aren’t interview or boardroom ready. Would I be my only customer? I could live with that.
Next… I need help!
If I were tall and willowy and Gina Torres: everything she wore in the first few seasons of Suits, get in my closet! Kerry Washington’s styling in Scandal is also impeccable. If I were way cooler than I am, I’d be cool with the wardrobe for Maggie Q from Nikita. But not their shoes. I can’t do any of their heels.
Then again, none of their clothes are kid-friendly. I wore a nice blouse and slacks to a parent volunteer thing and came home with three kinds of fluids on me from kids who used my shoulder as a landing pad for their drippy faces. There’s always one kid who thinks I’m their person.
Naturally, I’m none of the above. I’m short, slim to the point of being skinny. My knees (and every other joint from the hips on down) are a no-heels-zone. They need support and cushion, it’s not optional. The ideal uniform is easy to put together, baby friendly, me-the-klutz friendly, and travel friendly.
If we still lived in the southern half of the state, this Polka Dot Silk Wrap Dress and this silk chain link print shift would be in my shopping cart just waiting for a great sale. But if 60 degrees doesn’t feel like freezing anymore, it’s still not warm, I don’t care what you say. I know you’re laughing at me, Canadians – I’m at peace with that.
In truly temperate weather, I’m in a cotton shirt, jeans or stretchy slacks, a draping light cardigan or sweater. I love my Bobeau fleece and Caslon drape neck zip cardigans. They don’t sell the zip cardigans anymore so I’m glad I gave into the temptation to buy it in both colors. In cold weather, I have one great winter coat but my ability to go from light to heavy layering is limited.
Shoes are typically flats or flipflops or sneakers. I’d love more classic styles but loafers and other similar shoes often look like clown shoes on me. Alternate suggestions?
In real life, I adore Jean’s and Kelly’s styles. Also Wendy’s. They’re even close to my body type. But as you can see, they’re far more polished, and oftentimes fancier, than I.
On second thought…
It turns out the act of writing this out is clarifying. When I started writing, it was mostly a mess. But I’m starting to see that my ideal style looks put-together and feels great to lounge and work in. That’s not impossible! Right?
My idea of matching colors is appalling, let’s get that out in the open right now. I think the general rule of thumb here is to remove all pieces that aren’t in a complementary color palette and restrict any new clothes to a simple color palette. Does anyone know how you do that?
I gravitate toward dark greens, blues, black. They’re easy, combined with white, though white is not awesome for me with an over-active child to chase and feed. Is tan and beige a good alternative? I really like the look of a crisp white blouse but probably that life isn’t for me.
Every so often, a bright color grabs my attention and I can’t resist. That’s one root of my current crisis. For example, I went wild and bought dark red slacks a while back. I like them but they seem to go with exactly one blouse. Like pantry cooking, people will helpfully suggest several combinations, but I currently own none of those other pieces!
That means I need a list of acceptable colors that would go with the basics that I already own. Ideally, I should be able to mix and match all tops and bottoms.
Now that I have a semblance of a game plan, I’m eager to start making this work.
Sidebar: Though we don’t dress each other, PiC and I share a similarly relaxed approach to style but it’s so much easier for him to look effortlessly business casual. Why is men’s clothing so much simpler?
:: What’s your style, how long did it take to refine? How did you figure out the color and the matching pieces thing? Who do you rely on for advice about this stuff?
:: The comment was “She still has ‘baby weight’. It’s been two years! I’d kill myself if I still had baby weight two years later.” I’m used to hearing horrible comments about women and their weight but that got my goat.
Around 6 am, the snorfling starts. This kid is nothing like me – goes from asleep to wide awake in less than three winks – so any waking movement is The Real Deal.
PiC’s already up and initiating the daddy+baby morning routine so I pass out again, dozing until 7 am.
I brush my teeth and check email for any emergencies. Nothing this morning so I take over feeding LB, give Seamus his morning meds, and strap LB into the stroller and head out for a walk. PiC usually takes them for a walk before I get up but since I’m up early, he might as well get a head start on getting ready.
We come back 30 minutes later for blocks and song: ze stands at the block box handing me one at a time, bobbing hir head to my song. Ze hands me one block, I hand hir another. Rinse and repeat.
Ze spies PiC around the corner, not paying attention to either of us. Opportunity! Ze makes a crawl-dash for the dog’s water bowl. Seamus’s water bowl beckons to hir irresistably. We head off some dashes, the others result in flying hir to the sink after ze has a good splash in his bowl. Seamus is NOT amused.
Hands washed, it’s book time. I start to read Tremendous Tractors at the book bench, ze leans up against the bench to listen for half a page, then starts sorting. This book is for … you. This book is for … you. This book is for … Seamus. This book is for … you. Halfway through reading, Busy Hands has handed me the entire stack of books. Rinse and repeat for the second half of the reading.
Next up: musical toys. Some toys are for sharing, like the blocks and Legos, some are for pulling apart and flinging about. This is one of the latter. Ze prefers to fly solo as ze wrestles the rings off the stand and discards them over a shoulder. Naturally I very helpfully undo all hir work as ze finishes, placing the parts all back on the stand again. This is worth about 20 minutes.
One of hir other musical toys goes off. Over my shoulder, I see Seamus grin and tuck his paw under his chin. THANKS.
A frown, an eye-rub. Then a bigger frown and a double eye-rub. Ze won’t admit it but the fatigue is upon hir and it’s time to warm a bottle. We’ll be weaning off the bottle soon, so we’re in a transition period of bottles before naps and sippy cups after. We bounce on the yoga ball on the way to the sofa. Bottle clutched in chubby hands, tiny feet propped up on my lap, we relax for a few minutes. And I check email again. All’s quiet, just routine stuff, so I enjoy a moment of almost-cuddling with my squirmy worm.
Bottle polished off, ze hands it to me and contemplates hir full belly with a half smile. Time was, ze would finish bottle and throw it like a football. I like this new development. LB settles down after 9 am and Seamus gets breakfast. Now, it’s my time: get a glass of water, find my glasses, my computer, and dive into work. But first: sweatpants!
I get an hour and a quarter on Nap 1. I mowed down all urgent and important emails, jot to-do list for the rest of my work day. Caught up on some projects and even unexpectedly finish a call early so I process an Amazon return and package up the box to drop off at the post office. Prep the first load of laundry, it’ll be ready for drying sometime when ze gets up.
A wail. That’s never good. Ze normally wakes up and plays for a while, then yells for rescue, but ze has been running a fever the past few days and evidently ze’s miserable again. I hold hir for a while. Ze doesn’t want food or water, doesn’t want to be put down but doesn’t want to be held like that either. We sit on the ground with some toys, sadly looking at one, then another, until my silly song and toy rattling coaxes a smile to the surface. Soon enough it’s submerged under tears, again. This calls for a change in scenery, and we also need milk.
Seamus is appalled. We’re obviously going outside, but we’re not taking him with us??? It’s literally unbelievable. He walks out the front door to wait outside because surely we don’t mean to go anywhere without him. Except, we must. We’re going to walk to the grocery store and he’s not allowed inside. I’m certainly not tying him up outside, someone might steal him. And I can’t tie him outside with LB. I think that’s frowned on.
Heavy with guilt, I lock up, leaving him to contemplate the traitorous nature of Humans.
The outing helps hir mood. I pick up groceries, then we struggle our way back home. It’s a long bracing walk but I seem to have caught hir bug. Everything is heavier, more exhausting. It takes us 45 minutes, round trip.
I get a text from PiC as we arrive home and start coaxing some food into the somewhat refreshed baby. Between bites, we realize that he’d failed to plan his day all the way through and now needs to be picked up. He’s tried asking a few friends if they were in the area but I thought it unlikely so I dose hir up with ibuprofen (doc’s orders!), strap hir into the harness, and we plod back outside to the car.
Mom and baby to the rescue: we pick up PiC from the nearby transit stop, and we make a quick stop at the pharmacy for my meds before getting back home.Usually I have them mailed but the pharmacy screwed up this refill.
Snack time part two commences with a bun and a pinch bowl of raisins. These are perfect for letting hir feed hirself: small enough to fit infant-appropriate serving size snacks, the bowls are sturdy and flexible, ze thinks they’re toys as much as food vehicles. Ze upends the bowl, wears it as a hat, chews on the side thoughtfully.
It’s been 3 hours since Nap 1, so I prep another bottle for hir and peel my shoes out of hir hands again. Someday, this child will stop trying to lick my shoes. Until then …. I cuddle hir on my lap with a bottle. Usually ze lays on the ground snuggled into hir Boppy but today I’m too tired to pick hir up again so lap it is. NOPE, ze struggles back up. I push hir back and offer the bottle again. Well, ok. Ze drinks, pops the bottle out to show me hir progress halfway through, squirts hirself in the face with milk, and finally finishes.
Off to bed. There are some protests. There may be some bar rattling. But once I’ve initiated naptime procedures, I don’t look back. That ze knows of, anyway. *glances at the monitor*
2:11 pm: Silence. Ze has passed out. I might, too. But no, I have work to do. I could eat but am dragging-tired so peel a couple of clementines and dive back into work.
Ze sleeps two whole hours, waking in time to go on a walk with Seamus. As he chows down on early dinner, LB and I work on snacks. I cut up bananas and ze shakes up the yogurt cup. We have fruit, yogurt and some toast. Ze makes a complete mess of drinking milk from a sippy cup, again, so I mop up the milk spattered floor while ze pulls out the Legos for another pass at “building”. This means clapping them together and putting them back in the box, waving a special one at me every so often.
Hir patience seems unusually good for being under the weather so I take advantage of the free hands to prep dinner. He never expects it but the night feels like it goes so much more smoothly if dinner is ready just as PiC’s getting home. Most LB & me nights, that doesn’t happen, but ze is hanging out and entertaining hirself with the Legos so the stove and oven are fired up.
PiC rolls in a bit after 6, some surprise thing held him up, but we’re still on track for a quick dinner and put LB to bed by 7:30. Excellent! I hide in the bathroom to decompress for about 20 minutes, and then get back to work. Meanwhile, PiC puts together LB’s lunch for the next day. I usually do that but he’s got it today.
My concentration is excellent the first three hours, then call it an early night closing in on midnight. My aches are getting the better of me and I’ve cleared the day’s work, go go efficiency! It’s best to lay my broken body down for actual rest.
Being flexible is the only way to survive combo days. If I try to stick to a rigid schedule like I might set for a daycare day, my focus is fractured and I do nothing well. Being present in the moment means ze and I are fully engaged when ze needs me, and then I’m fully engaged with my work when I’m working.
PiC handles all the out of the house chores like dealing with all the auto chores, picking up milk or medication, or dropping off packages. This leaves me free to use my energy where it’s most needed. Don’t get me wrong, he does plenty around the house, too, but that’s for another post.
I used to think we should hire out some of the work at home but honestly as we settle into routines, it doesn’t feel like we need to anymore. Which is good because as it happens, there’s not much extra room in the budget anyway.
We had a long discussion recently about our routine, it gets a bit flabby when it seems like you’re doing the same things over and over, but you’re really slipping into chaos bit by bit.
We’re committing to an 11 pm bedtime and to carving out specific hours on the weekend for my work. Unrelated? Not at all. We rely on each other heavily but if we’re both sleep deprived, then we’re no good to each other. So, more sleep. And more dedicated time on the weekend to engage with my work because sometimes I just need more hours on that front.
:: How set is your daily routine? Do you prefer a set schedule or taking it as it goes?
ON MONEY
Depending on how it goes, you might wish it had, but it won’t.
Theme: Adult time, me time
Rictussempra!
A closet catastrophe in search of style with comfort
Around 6 am, the snorfling starts. This kid is nothing like me – goes from asleep to wide awake in less than three winks – so any waking movement is The Real Deal.