My Saturday Night

I've made a new friend. Which, ya know, is kind of a big thing for me. This woman has seamlessly incorporated me, my whole family, into her life.

Even more, she's  extended party invitations. "You should come!" she insisted, "Its a Girl's Night Out. You'll love it!" And has hence incorporated me into her friends lives.

Which is surreal.

It takes a lot for me to talk to people. I need a plan, mental index cards with conversation topics, most of which usually revolve kids and the weather. I know, it's bad. Which is why I avoid social situations. But I walked into our friendship blind, and it has flourished; so I walked into her circle of friends blind too.

While it is to early to declare myself a success with the circle, I can say that night one was good. I was quiet, but I was myself. I made an ass of myself, and it was embraced, heralded even.

"You are one of us now!" they exclaimed in triumph, smoothing over actions that would have crushed me in any other group.

 And so, in a group of strangers that I have little in common with in the day to day, I now possess what seems like a teflon bond of foolishness.


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This post was inspired by Saturday Night Widows by Becky Aikman. After being kicked out of her widow support group for being too young, Becky creates her own support group with an unusual twist. Join From Left to Write on February 14 as we discuss Saturday Night Widows. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

With a Rubber Hose

We were all rushing around like bees in a hive:
4:45p Daycare pickup
5:15p Early dinner for the girls
5:45p Matt's class at the gym
6:15p Grace's gymnastics class

At 5:40 Clare decided to put herself on the evenings agenda too.

I was barking orders and clearing dishes and clearly not paying attention.

She looked at me slyly.
"Mama," she said with a smile, "In my nose."
"What's in your nose sweetie? Buggers? Do you need a tissue??"
"No," she said, "Up my nose. No buggers. A bead!"

Time froze for a second. She was so proud of herself.

Upon inspection, there it was.  As a distraction, I had pulled out a big bag of beads over President's Day weekend and let the girls and their friend string necklaces. The rubber of the elastic cording in the bag must have been getting old, because the necklaces have been systematically breaking and spraying nostril sized beads all over the floor. I thought I had been doing a good job of cleaning them up.

I tried trying to wiggle the bead back down her nose with my fingers from the outside. It wasn't budging. In fact, with the way she was fighting me, it was sliding further up. I called Matt. By the time he came home from his abandoned class, Doctor Google had given us some new ideas:

Try tweezers! - Except as soon as she saw us coming with them she would start to scream and thrash so violently we were afraid of poking the bead up into her brain.

Use a shop vac to suck it out! - Which we do own as part of the ill fated pool draining experiment, but they are big and loud and the hose was the size of 1/3 of her face. So we tried the vacuum, which didn't go over well either, because I don't vacuum. Ever. Well, only on special occasions. It is usually something we leave to cleaning crews, so Clare has only ever heard the vacuum 2 or 3 times in her life. That option did not go over well either. And now she was crying so hard she was doing the opposite of the vacuum and starting to suck the bead up further into her nose all by herself.

So at this point we were talking about the immediate care center. And Grace has realized that her chances of going to gymnastics were getting slimmer by every passing minute and starts to have a meltdown.

At the clinic, the doctor was indeed able to remove the bead in the predicted 30 seconds, but it was well worth the $50 copay. She would have never let us get it out.

And now the house has been purged of the beads and we repeat the daily mantra of "I promise I will not put anything up my nose. No beads in nose. I promise."

Our Normal

We have a new tradition in our house.

It's not necessarily about family in the broader sense like so many other people this time of year, but our family.  We live 800 miles away from the rest of our family and refuse to trek to Chicago for the week. It is ours, it is our girls.

It is a little bit maddening.

We've come to the realization that we need to do something, ANYTHING, to get us out house when the rest of America tucks away into itself. And so, we started a Christmas Eve trip tradition, and went to Hershey Park.  Bet you didn't know they were open in the middle of winter, huh? Let me tell you, they are and it is awesome.

Hershey's Christmas Candylane is a must on our holiday agenda now. At least until the girls out grow the type of ride that can function in the middle of winter.

But really, does anybody really outgrow Peanut Butter Cups?

Touring

So. Sometimes, I get a little carried away by ideas and the big picture. I forget a little bit about the reality of a situation.

Last week, I wrote about figurative sunshine and roses. How many times do you get to go stomp around the White House grounds, right? Shouldn't I push the memories of stress related sweat trickling down my spine out of my head?

It seems I did a little bit to good of a job with the mental cleanse of that one, because when Matt received another email announcing free unscheduled access to the grounds for Garden Tours, I jumped at the chance. Of course I want to go! I want to write about real sunshine and roses!

We started off with a good plan. Brunch at Founding Farmers followed by a stroll through the White House gardens! How could we go wrong? Well, for one we didn't realize the IMF World Bank Meetings were going on. Right next door to Founding Farmers. Blocking streets and sidewalks galore. And we seemed to forget about the fact that Clare won't sit longer than 5 minutes to eat. The out-of-this-world beignets did hold her in her seat for a solid 7 minutes, but after that she spent the hour dancing in her chair and receiving glares from the wait staff.

Inside the White House gates we faced another entirely new problem. A week ago they had free access to run across the luscious grass. Today, there were heavy chains and Secret Service protecting the blades. My children, Clare in particular, did not care of this. At all.

I think it became a game with her. After a few rounds of "How far can I get onto the green?" I was done. And the worst part? I pictured formal gardens squirreled away in some secret part of the lawn. Nope, the garden tour was mile markers with pictures of presidents planting trees.

Any pictures I have of the event I deleted from my phone. My children were pissed off the entire time. I was drenched in sweat. The one upside? We were within a stones throw of  of access to the front portico.

And we seemed to amuse the guards.

Away

Tuesday night was the first night I've ever been away from Clare.

393 nights I've spent with my Clare in my arms and pressed to my chest. Give or take a few.

When Matt travles for buisness, Grace says he is going on vacation because there is a hotel stay involved. So while I packed my bag on Monday night, Grace asked why I was going on vacation. I know it is just a word, vacation. Something that helps her understand what is going on, why we are sleeping in beds that are not our own, but it felt like a knife to me.

Mama is not going on vacation.

In fact, I am trying to come up with any feasable reason not to go. If I hadn't promised to split the cost of the hotel room with a colleauge, I don't think I would have gone. 393 nights with my babies. The panic attacks about not being there for the 394th night made my stomach churn right into my throat.

Dropping the girls off at daycare Tuesday morning was gut wrenching. I didn't cry on Clare's 1st day of daycare, but I bawled that monring.

Hi, It's me.

So, I've once again been neglecting this blog.

This post? Well, I got my wish. It became permanent on my return to work after maternity leave. If you don't consider the 10 weeks that I took for maternity leave, I'll have been in that position for a year in 3 more weeks.

The downside? As a permanent position, it is a TON more work than I expected. I went from someone who checked her watch every 15 minutes, starting within an hour of arrivial, to someone who has on occasion just plain old forgotten to eat lunch all together. Hence, why there has been a lot less words floating around in this space lately.

The upside is great though. It's finally a position where I feel valuable. Where I feel needed. I spend my days coding web postings and fixing fixable problems and giving my opinoins and making sure 130 ducks are staying in their rows.

So please stay with me. I will be spurratic; spitting out words here only when I can no longer stand to keep them in my head, but I think about this site all the time. I write posts in my head or 1/3 of the way on my iphone while tucked into the back corner of a meeting, but they never seem to materialize here.

So much is happening, so fast in our lives. Grace is 3 and Clare is 6 months. They change everyday and I NEED to check in here more often, so I don't forget what was. That is the point of Make Time For Love anyway, right?

Nesting

The world is funny. Friends are funny. Wavelengths and our connection over things that are un-connect-ably random are funny.

My partner in crime wrote this post yesterday. I saw it as I was putting the finishing touches on this one. Despite the polar opposition of the 'yes or no' nesting questions, the wavelength is there. No worries NES, I think my actions yesterday is enough for the both of us.

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This weekend I found: 2 pairs of underwear, 6 socks (none matching), rain boots that have been missing for 4 months, 3 gloves, my pruning sheers, ½ roll of paper towels, glue and enough dust bunnies to start a farm. Not that there would be any buyers.

Nesting is a funny thing. Especially when you don’t realize what is happening until it is over. I think I could embrace the irrational urge to clean spaces that have gone neglected for years much better if I understood at the time why I was doing it.

It started with our laundry room.

When I was pregnant with Gracie, they powers that be still suggested you drink bottled water. (Lord only knows what is floating around in tap water!) We bought into the recommendations, and therefore bought a giant water bottle dispenser. It has been sitting in our laundry room unused for 1.5 years, with a half fully bottle still on top, an empty one at its side and an unopened full one across the way. It was time for it to go.

What I didn’t take into consideration was the amount of crap I would find piled up behind it. That led to 2 full bags of garbage, organizing and labeling boxes on the top shelves, washing the rug 3 times, sweeping the random garage dirt that keeps getting tracked in AND scrubbing both the washer and dryer. I must say, I am pretty impressed with how it looks now.

Did you notice the ‘random garage dirt’ portion? That turned into phase two. Besides the random garage miscellany that tends to build up, a nice portion of our desk construction took place in the garage this summer – and never was cleaned up. Hence: random chunks of treated wood, sawdust galore, a wheelbarrow full of tools thrown along side other pieces of summer that never really found it way home.

It wasn’t until my back started spasming with the last few broom sweeps in the garage that I realized what I was doing. The warm spring-like weather combined with my 6 month pregnant belly combined to form the perfect little burst of nesting. I would kill for before and after pictures, but I guess I will just settle for my feet not getting dirty.

Today though, I am spent. I wish ‘But I cleaned 2 years with of clutter this weekend!’ was a valid reason for napping during meetings come the work week.

The Smell of Wet Wool

Before I could even sit down at my desk today I was asked about my weekend.

Did you go to the Sheep and Wool Festival? How was it? He inquired.

My response? Horrible.

Grace loves making animal noises, so I figured why not go see some sheep. The festival was free and minutes away from my house.

It was pouring rain, but I was prepared for that.

I dressed in capri’s and my super cute donkey boots and outfitted Grace with the knock-off Crocs I bought for the upcoming summer. Neither one of us own a proper rain coat, but we’d be fine with an umbrella. Most of the exhibits are in pavilions anyway.

I was shocked at how many cars there were in the mud filled parking lot. Given the crowds and the aforementioned mud, I decided to skip the stroller.

*Mistake #1*

About ¾ of the way to the first pavilion filled with sheep, my lower back started to spasm. Grace in my left arm, the umbrella being held over us with my right and my spine in an unnatural position sloshing though puddles.

The sanctuary of our first pavilion didn’t last long. Grace was excited about the sheep for about 10 seconds.

Then one looked at her and Baa-ed.

She started backing away from the animals, finger out wiggling back and forth, with a trail of shrill No No No’s to go with it.

Up Mama. Up. No No No. All Done. No Mama. Up up.

Silly me. I thought she would be excited over the animals.

*Mistake #2*

So we wound our way through craft pavilions filled with yarns in every imaginable hue and texture. It was beautiful, except for the fact that my back was spasming again because Grace refused to walk - in fear of the sheep that are now 100 feet away, not to mention caged and leashed.

Why didn’t I bring the front-pack baby carrier that we’ve only used 2 or 3 times?

*Mistake #3*

After two pavilions, Grace starts to relax and wants to walk.

Fantastic!

Except she no longer wants to be picked up for transport between the pavilions or hold my hand in the crowds. After several smiles from strangers and declarations of her beauty, she has a melt down right in the middle of an entrance.

I can see the smiles melt off strangers faces and she proceeds to have her first official toddleresque lay-down-on-the-ground-screaming-and-flailing-in-a-public-place tantrum ever.

Whatever.

I could care less about the strangers faces, but have you picked up on the fact that we are in an agricultural environment? Her back was now coated in the filth of rainy days and barnyard animals. Which then transferred to me when I hoisted her off the ground.

*Mistake #4*

On the way back to the car she started to do the arching pissed-off baby yoga in my aching arms and I gave in. I put her down on the ground. I crouched down, trying to keep her head dry with my umbrella (and getting poured on myself) while she happily splashed in puddles and got admiring coos from passerbys. (The knitting crowd is an easy target.)

Anyway, in the middle of all the splashing and cooing - splat - down she went. Thankfully it was right before a big puddle, but the shins of her pants are soaked and covered with mud. I gave up on the umbrella and collapsed it for the next portion of the adventure.

Picking up a pissed-off, muddy, wet child who is screaming, doing baby yoga and kicking me in the stomach for my efforts.

*Mistake #5*

We dash through the rain back to our car in the crowded parking lot. It was kind of like being at the mall. I was stalked by and SUV looking for a closer parking spot.

So I'm trying to make a pissed-off, muddy, wet child who is in full blown snot-filled hysterics, sit still so I can buckle her into her car seat - with a car humming and eyes boring holes into the back of my head watching this whole scene take place.

I really did think about just letting her lie on the floor for the 12 minute car ride home.

*Did Not Make Mistake #6*

I wanted to, but I didn't. I held her down until she relaxed enough to snap the belts closed. Then spent 3 more minutes trying to peel off my coat - sweat soaked on the inside and rain soaked on the outside.

And that - dear coworker - was my hour at the Sheep and Wool Festival.

No, no I don't think we'll be going back next year.

The Crazies

Tonight was eventful. It was dramatic. Not the good kind of drama though. There are no awards to be given out. Well, maybe I'll nominate myself for Most Ridiculous.

1) We just had our 1st Wii (yeah, we bought one- more to come on that) related fight. Stupid, huh? I know. I was upset. I am really hormonal right now, which is what I am blaming all of my other frustrations on.

2) I went to the doctor today and found out I have a cyst that needs to be cut off. I am only typing this out loud because I don't think anyone (outside of a few friends that I would tell anyway) read this blog.
It's not a big deal. It is in a place that rarely sees daylight so it is something that I've been ignoring for years, but finally sucked it up and had it poked at yesterday.
You know when the Dr.'s response is "Oh my!" it is never a good thing. She said she has no doubt that is benign though, so there is no worries.
Just outpatient hacking into my flesh and a referral to a surgical team that seem to all speak some Middle-Eastern dialect. I am freaked out.

3) Given #1 & #2, I am drinking. Box wine. That is our reaction to the economic downturn. And I'm shopping a lot less during lunch breaks. Sad isn't it?

OK, so I've typed a 1,2 & 3, and am realizing that that is all I have. Thank you NES, blogging really is a form of therapy. #1 is because of #2 and is instigated by #3. I feel better already.