yet another one titled - "I'm Alive!"

For a girl who used to obsessively keep hand-written journals, who then diary'd (is that a verb?? just made it one!) at least every couple of days for the past 5+ years on the anonymous interwebz - it has been a LONG TIME.

Part of the reason is because work (where I used to take breaks to read-comment-and-blog) has been insane. The previous owner (yup PREVIOUS) handed the company over to new management on May 1st and I have been working my ass off since then....

In the weeks preceding the hand-off, all of us managers had a bit of a panic and assumed the new company would be centralizing a number of jobs we all currently did, so I applied - to, at the end of the of the day, really only one job.  

A few weeks later, they got back to me and I interviewed - two full rounds, the first with local managers and the second via video conference with the corporate office.  Each round was more successful than the last, and it felt like stars had aligned for the timing of this move.

Except by then I had worked for the new management team for a number of weeks - and liked them, a lot.  Queue the can't-focus-stare-vacantly-at-the-floor distractions and contemplation of what I wanted - part-time so I could be around when Button gets dismissed from kindergarten each day? (because yea - that happened, he starts K this fall!!!!)

Or do I continue in the path of a 'career' mom, working 40+ hours a week with goals of climbing the ladder?

I accepted the job offer from the new company, with great trepidation... only to try and tell new management/give them my notice the very next day, and I say try because then the two big managers took me out to a very exorbitant lunch to discuss things.  The things were - why did I truly want to leave? what did the new company have that they didn't?

I mean - I had been with the old owner for over NINE YEARS. 

So long story mostly just a little less long, negotiations were made with my current company's new management and I decided to stay.  I literally just sent the e-mail to the recruiter announcing that I had to rescind my acceptance of their offer. 

Regardless of if I stayed or went, I think I had decided I was happy working full-time... Button started attending our daycare at 10 months, Ms. Mack at 12-13 weeks... they love it, love the teachers who love them back, love their friends, love the social interactions - and I truly feel like a better mother because I'm able to keep autonomy and have an identity as a working woman.  (All that to copy a quote from a blog I was just catching up on - the author was mentioning a German book she read that compared European versus American ways of raising children, and how Americans are almost apologetic that they sent their children to daycares: Zaske concludes, "If you can find a quality childcare center with a caring, educated staff, your child will have more advantages than a child raised solely at ome does, including new experiences and relationships. You will have partners in raising her, and more time and space to become a better parent yourself. Your child will also be taking a big step toward developing more independence."


Yet I had always felt torn/undecided when, for instance, a co-worker teared up and claimed that "being there to meet her kids as they disembarked from the school bus was the best decision of [her] life" and she basically recommended working PART-TIME so one could be home with their children.

But then my inner pre-children self would pipe up and argue, But what about time to do what you LOVE? to read, to play piano, to write! and I'd doubt that freeing up half of my week by working part-time would truly be because I was picking my kids up at 2pm instead of 5pm and still not doing the things I loved to do...



So the negotiations I made with new management at current company were this: the biggest thing I wanted that I had previously agreed upon with old owner in lieu of a raise (because really, this was worth more than money for me) - by this fall, I will be working twice a week only until 2pm.  Most likely, only on ONE of those days I will go pick up Button from kindergarten and we'll spend time - grocery shopping, doing laundry, cleaning, whatever.  The second day I will most likely leave him with the after-care program (being run by his current daycare, I'm so thrilled!) and I will be able to decide what I'd like to do: write, play piano, or fold laundry while watching TV.

I know - after such a dry spell and now this novella.  Well, it's after midnight on a day that included dentist appointments for both children and hours spent at the local science center (which included snafu after snafu with transportation). We were gone from 9:45am until after 7:30pm, the silver lining to that being both kids crashed hard at bedtime.

Then I had to run to Kmart for the last part of a Father's Day gift (hubby will have to go to Walgreens for a giftcard for his dad tomorrow - most likely as we drive over for a BBQ....) and then finally finished up editing and publishing photos I took on a side job over a month ago.... and so, it's Saturday night, I'm slightly drunk and I still have to wrap gifts - so instead I'm breaking the blog dry spell.

You should hear from me at least once a week now on my self-sanity-preservation day! =)

THAT Medical Question

You know the one - and it usually sneaks out when you least expect it:

"How many pregnancies?"



Most recently, it was during pre-screening checks to donate platelets/plasma/whole blood.  I remembered a different nurse asking me the same question last time I donated, and last time I simply said, "three."  The nurse had written it down and carried on taking vitals, pumping up the blood pressure cuff with two fingers pressed to the inside of my wrist.

This time, just when I was ready to sigh in relief that the response wasn't being expanded upon, the nurse said, "I have three, too - and aren't they a handful?"

 And I guess I could have just smiled and nodded in agreement.  I didn't want to make her feel bad or anything - but who knows, maybe she was a member of The Secret Club too and she would totally understand and we would briefly connect, two strangers with a common bond.

During the millisecond debate going on in my head, she then asked how old they were.

So I said, "Well actually I have two children - they're four-and-a-half and two years old..."


And the nurse immediately understood, and graciously apologized, and then said "I shouldn't have assumed, I'm so sorry..."

And I said, and truly meant, "it's ok... two are still a handful, and yet I'm trying to decide whether to convince my husband that we want a third!"

She laughed, still sorry, but took my lead that it was ok; and three children are WHOA, but aren't they also the funnest ever?

And we were two strangers who connected anyways.

re-LENT-less

So it's Lent, and I could totally claim that I gave up blogging for lent and this absence has been totally purposeful.

But I'd be full of shit.


In reality, life right now is:
- arriving at daycare drop off with jelly still smeared ear to ear on Ms. Mack (and the teachers love to play the game Guess What Was For Breakfast!)

- wondering how the house looks like a TORNADO TORE THROUGH literally 15 hours (10 of which the kids spent sleeping!) after the cleaning lady did her thang.  (And by cleaning lady, I am totally not referring to myself.)

- finally figuring out a good schedule for Peapod (we dropped HelloFresh - portions were getting to be NotEnough) and every Thursday/Friday night seems about right for us; I'm (so far) organized with keep (a google app) for meal planning and such.  So far.

- Pinning outfits which is also totally helping when I can barely open my eyes in the morning and have 30 minutes to get dressed and made up before shlepping the kids out the door.

- snowing. Nor'Easter after Nor'Easter, and I think I heard another one coming this Tuesday... -_- spring and summer seem very far off...


and life upcoming is:
- planning to redecorate our master bedroom (currently a dark sage green, which we just left from the previous owners because - "It's ok." as hubby put it. -_-)  I got a king comforter+shams set from a friend, and I plan on painting when he's in Montreal for three days at a bachelor party.  This involves moving away from walls: a king-size bed, a tall armoir, two nightstands, and a large dresser.  I'm still debating who to enlist as child care and who to enlist as painting/moving helpers.  I am insistent on doing this all RealityTVDesignShow style and have it all done and pretty with accent pillows and all when hubby arrives home from the airport Sunday evening.   I may also be heavily drinking.

- writing novels.  I started one last April, 'finished' (draft one) by December 31st as per a personal deadline.  Then four chapters into a revision, decided to start a different project.  And then another project.  I'm more passionate about the second two projects.  But there it is, three different novels, all in progress.


But all of this is fine - we're fine, getting ready for school pictures in a few weeks for which Button will be donning a cap and gown (preschool grad? and kindergarten grad? seems a bit overkill to me... the kid will have graduated like ten times in the next fifteen years)

And each time I think our social calendar has calmed down, boom - we receive three invitations in the mail for birthday parties, bridal showers, and photo-shoot requests - two on the same day.

Some days I want to disappear for a week and see how hubby would handle (he'd totally just take a week's vacation from work cuz there no WAY he could handle all that plus 40-hr work week.) and then, like I text my mom the other night, there's times I wanna be all "LET ME GET MY CAPE! I CAN DO IT AND BE PROUD!"

most times, I land somewhere in between - shrugging when we miss Show'N'Tell for the fourth week in a row (Button assured me it's ok, when kids forget their Show'N'Tell they can just grab something from the classroom) and making sure there's always a frozen lasagna (Stauffers makes the best!) ready to pop in the oven for dinner...

our cleaning lady is moving (back to OH) at the end of the month, Monday is her last day and I have a feeling (without a new one lined up yet) that I won't fully recognize all she did until we don't have her for two weeks.  We'll see...

Right now, the laundry is sitting in a basket in the hallway, but hey - it's clean and folded!  and we're THIS close to getting Button to put his own clothes away.




Anyways.

that's all.  Just an update before this becomes too tedious to publish and it sits in my draft folder for months...

Ms. Maddie Mack Turns Two

A two year old is so many things. 

A tiny discoverer of butterfly wings.

A hugger of teddies, a sweet sleepy head. 

And someone to dream for in bright years ahead.

A lover of snap chat, Minnie, crayon art - 

a little mouse I love with all of my heart.

At two years old, you weight approximately twenty-five pounds (you danced around a bit while standing on the scale, silly girl) and are 33.75" long!

Both of those measurements put you exactly at the 50th percentile!
And according to this nifty little thing on BabyCenter, you'll be like the girls on Daddy's side of the family - Italian and petite!

We're working on potty training (i.e. we have just recently started randomly putting you on the potty - you're more than willing to sit and 'grunt' and pretend to pee, but a few days ago - YOU ACTUALLY PEE-PEED ON THE POTTY!!! and nothing since.)

We had a Minnie-Mouse Bounce-Mouse party, and while you were the ONLY GIRL amongst your boy cousins and brother, you had so much fun!

Speaking of your brother - you two MOSTLY get along (even when he 'hugs' you a.k.a tries to squeeze your head off) and you love to watch him play hockey!

enjoying a bowl of ice/snow together

of course.

You have 16 teeth (been to the dentist already!) and next up are your two-year molars!

You climb - all over me, Daddy, our kitchen chairs, the stair banisters, you name it - you're our feerless little mountain goat

(you actually usually go higher than this...

on the top stair outer stair... 

GIRL!)

And just when I think I've learned all the things - 

what it is to have a daughter and the joy that she brings, 

a hug or a grin comes with such sweet surprise - 

that love finds me smiling with tears in my eyes.

You're a splashing spitfire sprite of a thing -

 I can't wait to watch and see you take wing!