Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Well, folks, it's over. The flurry of activity that is Christmas has finally come to an end, thank God. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, especially with the kids, but it is definitely a time-and-energy intensive project to coordinate, one that I am grateful to have finished. Done. Complete. Finito. Feliz frigging Navidad and call it a day, por favor.

In reflecting on the past year, I must say, the most positive thing has got to be (besides my sweet baby) my decision to quit taking it up the arse & get a new job. I am simply un-depressable (is that a word?) these days. These fine folks are head over heels in love with me, and I with them. What I'm doing isn't rocket science, I realize this, but I seem to be doing quite the fine job, according to the feedback I'm getting, and that is perhaps what I was missing most at the old place. In the place where you spend the majority of your waking hours, you like to think that what you're doing means something to somebody, somewhere, and that you're doing a halfway-decent job of it. If I should ever get the money/motivation/time/energy to pursue further schooling, I may very well consider studying patent law. The things I've seen, man, they're so damn cool. Really far out. Ba du ba ba baaa...

The other thing that sticks out in my head about the past year is a lesson learned. And that lesson is...Shut the hell up. It's hilariously ironic to me that I went to a shrink to learn to communicate, and my New Year's resolution will undoubtedly be to keep my mouth shut. I'm so irritated with having had an innocent chat with a family member, only to wake up the next morning and read my personal business splashed across the front page. Why? Does no one have hobbies anymore? Is my life really that exciting? Did confidentiality die with chivalry? I'm at a loss as to how to explain these happenings. The only course of action I see fit to take is to, you guessed it, shut the hell up. My shrink would probably be pissed, but I actually foresee this as being beneficial to my relationship with Nathaniel...He will now be privy to every vent and comment I might ordinarily have gotten out of my system elsewhere. I love you, honey. Get ready.

Christmas, check. New Year's resolution, check.

So what bright sparkling future awaits us in 2007? Stay tuned.

Monday, December 18, 2006

I’m beyond curious as to what Julian’s first word will be. I distinctly remember the biting disappointment when Spencer looked adoringly at his father and softly said, “Dada.” In order to nip another situation like that in the bud, I find myself inundating the poor child with “Momma”s. I am bound and determined that he recognize who wears the pants in this family.

“Momma makes a bottle! Look at Momma making a bottle for Momma’s baby. Oh Momma, you are so clever Momma, look how Momma mixes a bottle for Momma’s boy. Momma Momma Momma Momma.”

And now, halfway through my headlong plunge into this task, I realize just what I have become. It’s official, folks. I have in fact become…a Pokemon.

Remember Pokemon? All the cartoon-y characters, running around saying nothing but their own names in conversation-like cadence? This is what I have been reduced to. A PokeMomma.

But you know what? It will all be worth it. My silly conversations to myself, with myself, about myself…the sacrifice of any real adult conversation before 7 p.m….will all be worth it, when my JuJuBee sits up one day, points a little Vienna sausage finger at me and claims me for his very own, “Momma.”

You better recognize.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

One of life's deepest mysteries is the male reaction to a virus. I need some scientific proof, a study, an experiment, a fricking poll, anything, that gives me some clue as to why the male body reacts the way it does when invaded by a little ol' germ.

You know the reaction I'm talking about. At the first nasal tickle, the first (gasp!) drip, he keels over. Crawls, mewling like an orphaned kitten, to the couch, where he will slump in vocal agony as THE BUG ravishes his otherwise strong-like-bull body.

THE BUG in question will be debated upon for weeks to come, long after the symptoms have hit the road, jack. He will ponder upon just who could possibly have been so angry with him as to target his particular immune system with THE BUG. Who so brutally attacked him, and why? This, folks, this must be biological warfare. I say we drop a bomb of influenza on whoever the hell it is we're fighting now and watch the menfolk drop like flies, crying like babies to their momma.

It's funny, isn't it (hiLARious), how women, especially the working mothers among us, really get no downtime. Cold? Doesn't even slow us down. Flu? Take your OTC drug cocktail of choice and keep on trucking. Polio? Meningitis? There is work to be done, woman, what is this talk of a nap?? Heresy!

As we speak, You Know Who is laying on his deathbed, quite possibly the first person in the last 85 years to die of the common cold. Pay your respects while you still can, he's down to his last moments, I'm sure.

Friday, December 08, 2006

Well smack my arse and call me Busy, it seems this week has rushed by again with nary a chance to blog! Oh my dear, sweetly patient blogging audience, all 2.5 of you, thank you for waiting. You must have been very, very good, look what Santa brought you! More blithering nonsense. Ready?

If I should not answer the phone, or douse the lights and pretend not to be home, please don’t be offended. It’s nothing personal. It’s not you, it’s me. I am finding quiet, personal time to be more valuable than gold these days. Even Nathaniel has found himself talking to the hand on occasion, because, dear reader, at the end of the day, when the rapid-fire barrage of ceaseless questions are over and The Crying Game has ended, I am one tired, tired momma who wants nothing more out of life than to crawl under a rock where it’s QUIET.

I propose that instead of burning pokers under the fingernails or Chinese water torture, we send prisoners of war or terrorists to be subjected to the incessant, burning questions of very young children.

“Pick up your toys, please.”

“Why?”

“Because someone could trip over them and fall down.”

“Why?”

“Because we have to walk there, honey, it’s the middle of the doorway.”

“Where?”

“Right there, in the kitchen doorway, where your toys are!”

“Here?”

“Yes!”

“Here, where my toys are?”

“Yes!”

“Someone could trip over them? Who?”

“Yes, honey, like Daddy or Mommy or just anyone.”

“You would trip? And fall down? And go CRASH! BOOM! BANG! Like that?”

“Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.”

“Hey, Mommy?”

What, baby?”

“I should pick my toys up.”

Oh. My. God. Stand back. Someone, quick, get me the waiting list for Stanford.

I love my son. Don’t get me wrong. I just sometimes wish I were on a white sand beach on the opposite side of the world, listening to the sound of the waves and THAT’S IT.

Lord help the attorney who asks me “why” on Monday.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Ahhh, the weekend. We meet again, dear friend.

In with the weekend, out with the Indian summer. It has been a glorious sixty-plus degrees here the past couple of weeks, and today, a return to freezing temperatures and, your favorite and mine, winter precipitation. Walla walla walla, step right up and place your bets! Will it hail? Sleet? Snow? Will it take ten minutes to get to work or forty-five? It's anybody's guess, and you won't know 'til you roll out of bed in the morning.

Ohio weathermen have got to have the toughest jobs in America. I can just picture them, poring over blips on screens and highs and lows and God knows what...Here comes the anchorman, straighten his tie, powder his nose, quick, somebody, tell him what to say! And we're live in three, two, one...Well folks, six oh two is the time and the weather tonight will be...(I SWEAR one time he actually said this)...Changing skies! WHAT? What does that mean?? Absolutely nothing. It's comparable to THE ORANGE ALERT (I always picture it in all caps) the country has been on for what, five years now? I just want to know how that helps, at all. I want to hear one eyewitness get on the news and stand there, shaking and upset but visibly relieved...You know, that ORANGE ALERT really saved my bum! I don't know what would have happened if it hadn't been for THE ORANGE ALERT!

A definite plus to working on the nineteenth floor is the frigging view, man. I am all up in those changing skies, and I can see foul weather rolling in a mile away. A dark line on the horizon, three layers of clouds moving at different speeds, and then...nothing. The clouds envelop us and for all I know, the nineteenth floor could have floated clean away and my elevator shaft nightmares could come true. We could be airborne, untethered, spirited off to that patent law office in the sky, some adventure to be had. It's all so Gulliver's Travels.

And here I am, daydreams burst, slamming back home to reality in my chair, my desk, my office, my floor, my building. My hunger to pour my thoughts out of my jumbled, eccentric mind, write them down, organize and share them has been sated, and that can mean only one thing. Lunch time is over.