|
Welcome to High Heeled Mom! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! I’m sick and exhausted and brain-dead, and there’s a hurricane a-comin’ (literally). The new job is going well but I’ve got a nasty cold. Will return soon! In the meantime… take this opportunity to throw out any more topic suggestions you may have. Three-year-olds say the darndest things. Here’s a selection of recent ones, and I want to hear yours. “Mommy, remember last day ago?” (This could be yesterday, or any time previous to that.) “Christina, who’s the princess who loves nature?” “Christina, stop hanging on me.” “Mommy, she eat your boobs. When I tiny Christina, I eat your boobs. When Rebecca is tiny Rebecca, she eat your boobs!” “Mommy, when I was big girl, I get makeup?” (As is apparent from this and the last one, the verb tenses are not fully developed.) “Christina, tell Rebecca you’re sorry for pushing.” Christina was born with a decent amount of hair, though nothing particularly unusual for a baby. For some reason I’d always visualized my baby being born bald, and it was somewhat shocking when my husband said, astounded, “I CAN SEE HER HAIR!” as she emerged. (And slipped back… and emerged… and slipped back… for two and a half hours…)
Check out that pointy HEAD! That’s the result of that long time pushing… thank God for the BabyVac. However, unlike some babies, C’s hair didn’t thin. It grew… and grew.
One year old. So I’m not much of a chef. I adore watching the Food Network, but if I were asked by Bobby, Susie, and/or Giada (on the Next Food Network Star) what my “culinary point of view” was, they’d be rather disappointed.
“Hi, I’m Bobby Flay. I go around the country telling each pizza specialist that I can outdo him at pizza, each champion baker of banana cream pies that my banana creme pies are better, and Israeli couscous specialist that my Israeli couscous is superior. I’m better at picking star chefs than the producers of the Food Network. But why stop there? Next to do: prove that I can save West Virginia from obesity quicker than Jamie Oliver, pull more ladies than Snoop, and kick the ass of Chuck Norris in an ass-kicking contest.” Okay, so I don’t care for Bobby Flay. What of it? Tangent over. A gathering of my posts (and posts by wonderful working mom friends!) on day care options: Finding a Day Care- State Requirements Why I Love My In-Home Child Care I promised a post on how we picked our daycare, when I was about 30 weeks pregnant with C. It really didn’t turn out to be hard, we were fortunate. Since my husband and I both work in opposite directions from our house, we wanted something close to the house itself (I drop off and he picks up), and we wanted it cost-effective and safe. Those were really our only requirements- anything else intimidated me to even think about. (You’re talking to a woman who cried over a baby registry, terrified of how many options there were and how much I didn’t know about them). There were two centers that kept popping up in our town. One was mentioned to me by someone at church, one was right down the street from there. So one afternoon, we took off from work early and went to visit. I was fully expecting terrifying “maybe I will hit your baby, maybe I won’t” people and exorbitant prices. I was pretty much terrified. One was sort of like this:
No, really. I mean, the building was small and old-looking, but that wasn’t the problem. We’d called ahead and they’d said to come on by at a given time. Well, we pulled up then and all the front windows were blocked with curtains (bad sign #1). We went through a side door into what we guessed was the lobby (having to guess was bad sign #2) and no one was in there (bad sign #3). It was stuffy and overly warm and didn’t smell very good (bad signs #4-6), and when I called quietly down the hall, no one responded, so we just went wandering (bad signs #7-8).
Treadmill: on order. Delivery and assembly included. (And yes, that’s it in the picture, the one I’m getting). Alarm clock: obtained. Have customarily been awoken by my husband, using his alarm clocks (yes, he uses two) but since I’m going to be the early bird, I need my own. It’s got pretty blue numbers and came from Target. Can you believe that I haven’t had a clock at my bedside in years?
Limited sports attire: obtained. I have a few pairs of gym shorts (they’re, um, the only shorts that fit me at the moment) but needed a couple tops, and I got them. Entertainment: Netflix streaming. Taking suggestions for what I should watch while walking. I think I may do a different show every morning of the week. Body: Well… I haven’t done anything exercise-wise in years. I don’t lead a totally sedentary lifestyle- I walk around a largish office a good bit at work, and obviously chase toddlers at home, but I haven’t broken a sweat in quite a while. My flexibility and endurance are WAY down (though I think I’m still decently strong, since I tote kids about). I’ve slowly started to try to get into the habit of stretching my legs out here and there when I stand still.
Diet: I don’t eat horribly, but it’s not great. I got into the habit of consuming more calories then I need early after A was born, when I was nursing and recovering, and just never stopped, though she’s not nursing as much now. (Though, incidentally, if you were wondering after this post, she is still nursing. She’s getting about half formula, half breastmilk during the daytime and nursing the rest of the time, with one bottle in the afternoons on weekend days). I know I’ll naturally do better once I’m working out, if the past is any indicator. My garden is in prime production season, so my tomatoes and peppers intake is way up! Just need for the treadmill to get here. I’m ready to get going. As silly as it is, I’ve got myself all psyched to get started then. This post appeared originally Friday on Village of Moms- check me out there! I’m sick of hearing myself speak in a snappy tone of voice. I don’t yell, and I don’t lose my temper, but things come out… snappy. “Christina, STOP hanging on me! I’m trying to get dinner ready!” “Rebecca, get to BED! It’s 930!” “Allison, what do you WANT?” “STOP, Christina!” “BED, Rebecca!” “SERIOUSLY, Allison. WHAT DO YOU WANT?” Inevitably, the snappy tone involves verbal capitalization and exclamation points. And I hate it. And I know that years down the road, it won’t matter if dinner was at 630 or 730 one night, Christina-hugs matter more… and Rebecca will learn to appreciate sleep even if she doesn’t know. So really, me getting upset over these things is pointless, but I do it anyway. I’m really not sure how to stop, but I really am sure that despite the lack of logic, you all will understand pretty well. (Note: this is tagged behavior… this time, though, I’m talking about MY behavior!) So, rather than controlling my snappiness, I’m going to fake it ’til I make it- I’m going to try and control the TONE. Speak nicely, and maybe I’ll wind up BEING nicer? Stranger things have happened. Wish me luck… I started my new job this week, and I am totally, utterly delighted by my new desk. Here are a few things I like:
I’m loving it. My little corner… even though I’ve been there a week I’m already feeling comfortable in my space, at least… doing the work is another matter; though I know the law behind it, the systems and people and procedures are all new. Once I’ve settled in a bit more, I promise a picture. I’ve actually been meaning to write this post for a while, as it happened several months ago. My parents were visiting, and I took a day off work to spend with them and the girls. As my mother is a librarian, she has many times taken the girls to storytime at our local library, which occurs during the daytime on weekdays. She said we should do this, and I happily agreed. Storytime at the local library- full of women who I assume are stay-at-home-moms (SAHMs, as they’re called on the internetz), and their toddlers aged about 18 months to 4 years. Usually a one-t0-one ratio, though I think one of them also had a baby sleeping in a stroller. And here, of course, comes Hotshot Lawyer Mom with her two toddlers and baby, feeling like of course she knows what the heck she’s doing, lookie me with all my kids! Um, yeah. Not so much. The SAHMs and their kids sat, listened to the stories, and sang and clapped at the appropriate times (the librarians were kind enough to intersperse the stories with easy “I’m a Little Teapot” type activities). My kids rolled on the floor, whined, ran, tried to get the attention of the other kids, and pounced on one another while I hopelessly reached and tried to grab and shush all three of them at once. Now, total quiet and stillness wasn’t expected- the other kids were up and about- but mine were the ones who seriously could not possibly have cared less about storytime. My mom kept Christina somewhat under control, but she kept whining back to me, and Rebecca was falling apart. (This was nowhere near naptime, and they weren’t hungry.) The SAHMs smiled kindly and helped contain my kids. I think they felt bad for me, obviously captive by terrors I couldn’t control. I like to trump up my confidence, but something like that is totally humbling. I am NOT the best parent, with the best-behaved kids in every situation, and part of that is because I am a working mom who doesn’t spend the time to take them to storytimes in public places and practice the proper behavior and attention. I know they do just fine at daycare in such situations. And I know they can control themselves well in situations they ARE used to being in with us- the grocery store, for instance, where they’re inevitably angels. But because I’m a working mom, storytime at the library, playgroups, and general daytime around-the-house things are not going to be part of our “good kid” repertoire for a very, very long time. I guess I’m okay with that, though it hurts my confidence as a parent (and especially a working mom) to see how well-behaved those library kids were for their mothers who spend the day with them. But I guess we’re all humbled by something. |
 Subscribe to High Heeled Mom's RSS feed, for any major feed reader.    |
|
Copyright © 2010 High Heeled Mom - All Rights Reserved |
|
