December 2, 2004

It’s been many moons since my last posting. In between, I’ve been occupied with traumatizing Lily with daycare and trying to find temporary care for Arden while my mother has back surgery and lots of fun physical therapy after.

Lily didn’t do so well her first couple of days at Tuckaway . . . crying, calling for mommy and daddy, not eating, lying on the floor while the other kids ate, and sitting in a chair all day staring out the window. If that’s not enough to make you want to quit your job or kill yourself, nothing is. As if mothers don’t have enough guilt on them regularly, taking your 2 year old to their first “preschool” experience heaps on an extra helping at no charge.

Arden stayed with mom and dad this week while I tried to work. Working after 6 weeks of being with kids and receiving minimal sleep lowered my IQ, and self-confidence, quite a few points. I floundered around through the three days and managed to bill more than I spent on childcare, so that’s a bonus. I’m hopeful that within the next couple of weeks the blood flow to my brain will start up again and I will remember what it is I do for a living. In the meantime, woe to the person who hires me for anything strategic. I may have to give them the “Post Partum Discount” on the usual hourly rate.

Here’s a cute picture my parents took of Arden . . . she’s growing. At least one of them is. Lily is officially off the charts (in the negative, downward direction) for weight. At 2 years old, she’s barely 20 lbs. We have to take her for some “just in case” blood and urine tests. I’m thrilled to be subjecting her to blood tests at 2 years old. At least I was 5 or 6 before I was introduced to my needle phobia. In the meantime, some friends of ours who have spent many hours (and lots of $$$) at the Children’s Hospital feeding clinic gave us some good pointers for bulking up Lily. I wish I could give her some of my fat. That would be great.

Just a quick note - today we took Lily to her day care place. She will be starting on the 29th and we wanted her to meet her class mates and get used to the idea. My child communicates fairly well, and out of all the phrases she can say, she chose a prime one as way of introduction to the director. On her way out the door, she told her “Have boogers - MAMA GIT!” Great. Now the director knows that I call her nasal stuffiness boogers, and that I am always cleaning her nose out. Fabulous.

On a happier, less embarassing note, she seemed to like it there, although we didn’t try to leave. The kids seemed happy and fairly well adjusted and one of her soon-to-be classmates grabbed her hand and began to drag her around the room, showing her all the toys. Arden was the real hit of the day - all the two year olds loved her and kept trying to touch her. I must have heard “Look with your eyes and not with your hands” 20 times. Kids Lily’s age seem fascinated by babies. I guess they are the only thing smaller than themselves.

Sometimes, my mother does the funniest things when she isn’t meaning to.  That’s what makes it so damn funny.  And I know this blog is supposed to be about Lily, but since when have I ever really stuck to that?  This story sort of is about Lily, anyway.

Yesterday when I put Lily in the tub, she was screeching protests, which is not normal for her since she usually loves her bath. Turns out she had a really bad case of diaper rash last night and when we went to clean her up, it hurt her.  I was at mom and dad’s last night as usual for Wednesday nights, so around 8 PM, Mike calls me to see how things are going.  At this point mom was sitting across the room from me, and I see her gesturing at me to get my attention.  She then puts both of her hands on her crotch and makes sort of a Michael-Jacksony gesture up her thighs.  My mouth just fell open - what would you do if you were on the phone with your significant other and your mother decided to start imitating Mick Jagger?  Then I realized - finally - what she was trying to tell me.  The crotch-grab gesticulation was really Yvonne sign language for “Don’t forget to tell Mike that Lily has diaper rash”.  OH!!!  I get it now.  Of course, once she realized what I was thinking, she started laughing too.  Mom is full of non-sequiturs and this was the latest of them.  We all got a good laugh out of it.

Lily was up every half hour or so last night for some unknown reason.  I vacillated between feeling sorry for her and wanting to cry because I was so tired.  She finally slept between 4 and 6:30 AM, which felt blissful after constant crying.  She wasn’t teething and other than being warm, I’m not sure what was bothering her.  I slathered her with diaper ointment so I doubt it was that, either. Sometimes I think she just wants to party all night and decides she isn’t going to sleep. 

I am in day care registration hell at the moment.  Do you all realize that good day care centers have such long waiting lists, you have to put your kids on there when they are in utero???  Yes, I just put Baby #2 on the waiting list for the place I’m trying to get Lily into.  And keep in mind, Baby #2 won’t be going there until she is 2.  In the meantime, the chances of me getting Lily into my first pick are the same as a snowball in hell, so she’ll go to my second choice place until a spot opens up.  At least I have a second choice where I am only second on the waiting list.  It’s really quite insane.  Here’s another thing that shocked me to death:  the place I’m trying to enroll Lily has this thing where sick children can stay.  That is shorthand for “My kid is sick, but I don’t want to stay home from work.”  You take your sick child in to a separate building next to the day care center/school and nurses watch them, administer medication, and who knows what else.  Is it just me, or have we gone too far?  I must get on my soapbox, because I can’t imagine me, being 5 or so, and having my mother drop me off with stomach flu to some daycare center to be cared for by a nurse.  That is just a bizarre concept.  They charge $75 a day for that service, so apparently people are using it frequently.  Needless to say, Lily will not be going there when she is sick.

I guess it could be worse - it brings to mind a not-so-fond memory of my previous life at the accounting firm, and this one particular person I worked with who was so psychotic about being at work every day that she dragged her 6 year old in with the stomach flu.  The poor kid had diarrhea and a fever.  Along with her kid, she dragged in a television and a bunch of videotapes, plopped him on the floor of her office, and made him stay there, sick, all day while she worked.  I don’t even think this was during tax season, not that it would be a good excuse.  Even more frightening is that we all had work-from-home computer access.  I admit, it’s very difficult to balance work and child rearing, and half the time I feel like I’m doing a bad job at everything, but I have to draw the line somewhere. 

I sent Lily off for her last day of care with Pauline. This morning the beast woke me at 5 AM by banging her pacifier against the outside of the monitor and making strange grunting sounds. I finally got her and fed her, and thankfully, she went back to sleep. HOWEVER - no one ever tells you that babies snore louder than adults. I swear it sounded like she was operating a chainsaw next to my ear. Needless to say I’m groggy this morning. Thank goodness she looks so sweet when she’s sleeping, or I’d really be annoyed.

I’m bad - I had a meeting today at 10.30 scheduled with a prospective client, and I just had this horrible feeling about the guy. I’ve talked to him twice on the phone and he was such an arrogant jerk, I just couldn’t bring myself to go. I used Laura’s favorite phrase when cancelling with him: “I just don’t think my services are a good fit with what you are looking for.” In other words, go find some other marketing weenie to abuse. I feel much more relieved now. Why do people call you, and then spend their time telling you how much they know about what you do, and how great they are, and how they are the gurus of the marketing universe? If that’s true, why would someone like that need me??? Go figure. Richmond is very small, and word gets around quickly, so I have to make sure I am politically correect and not burning any bridges, when my personality is more likely than not to be direct and say “I don’t like you, and the reason I quit working in the corporate world was so that I didn’t have to deal with people like YOU.” Being able to think it, if not say it, makes all those months when my clients aren’t paying on time well worth it. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

Last night Mike and I did “Power Yoga” instead of kicking the air and sweating and grunting. It’s still really hard. I was sweating like a pig and panting; nothing like the yoga people who “feel the effects” of whatever pose they’re in. I feel the effects of my out-of-shape body, that’s what I feel. They are all breathing quietly and prettily and Mike and I are huffing, groaning, cracking our bones, and burping a lot. What a nice picture that is. Yoga squeezes all of your internal organs. I remember the days of working out at the gym where looking into the mirror as I aerobicized didn’t give me nightmares. Thank goodness there are no mirrors near the VCR. My favorite part of any yoga class is the end, where you do deep relaxation, and sprawl in corpse pose and think about nothing. I went downstairs to do something and came back and Mike was still “corpse-ing” - I think he’d fallen asleep.

Mom and dad are watching Lily Saturday and I’m going to my first evening movie since she was born. I’m very excited. Mom keeps asking me what we’re going to see - I have no idea, and I don’t even care!!! Just getting out in a theatre is thrill enough for me.