The Post I Should Have Written Thursday

I haven't posted in four days.  That's the longest I've been away from my blog all year.  If this blog were a child, I'd probably be arrested for neglect.  But this blog isn't a child, which means I can catch up on my responsibilities whenever it's convenient for me, without legal repercussions.  Anyway, I'm attempting to go back in time and do a post for each of the three days I missed, so that I can get back on track with my goal of 365 posts this year.  Because, new paying work be damned, I will write 365 posts this year.  If only I were that disciplined about weight-loss.  Anyway, here goes ...

It turns out the unexpected hiatus from my freelance project was short-lived, because Wednesday night I received a big chunk of pages to edit.  Let me make this clear: I am not complaining.  As I said on Wednesday, I kind of didn't like the feeling of not knowing what to do with myself.  So work is good.  Work is very, very good. 

So, Thursday I dug into the project.  And it was the more interesting, less tedious part of the project, so that was good.  And you guys, I know this is a weird thing to say about editing math textbooks, but it was kind of awesome.  All this stuff was coming back to me that I hadn't thought about since quitting my job 2.5 years ago.  Like WOLs!  OMG I had forgotten about WOLs!  WOLs!

[A WOL is a write-on line.  You know, like a line in a student workbook where a kid writes the answer to a problem?  I'm not mentioning this because you needed to know an obscure fact about educational publishing.  I'm mentioning it because the whole WOL thing is an example of the larger fact that it's nice to remember the lingo.  One of the biggest worries women have when leaving the workforce for a period of time is that when they go back, everything will be too different for them to adapt.  And while there have obviously been changes in the industry since I left, at least good old WOLs are still alive and well.]

So Thursday, I edited.  And I lifted some really heavy objects with my trainer at the gym.  Then also somewhere in there I was on g-chat with Farrah, who mentioned that she was unable to use her free ticket to the upcoming Brand Blogger Summit, and asked if I'd like to have that ticket.  And since I always welcome the opportunity to get free stuff and drink cocktails network with other bloggers, I said yes.  More on that later.  Like in another post. 

Also on Thursday the dishwasher repair guy came.  For those curious about dishwasher repair, which is, you know, nobody, the problem was that the float valve was stuck shut and no water was getting into the dishwasher.  Plus when I was loading up the dishwasher for a test run, the guy told me I was sort of abusive toward my dishwasher because I was putting the dishes in so quickly and forcefully.  Now, (a) I abuse all electronics.  I am not gentle with them.  But (b) With the quantity of dishes going in and out of that thing in a given day, am I really supposed to place everything gingerly like it's all fine china?  Do you know how many Fiesta dishes I have broken in my life?  Two.  (As you'll recall, a piece of one got lodged in my husband's foot recently, necessitating medical care.)  So I'm not that worried about breaking my dishes.  Apparently, though, I should be worried about breaking my dishwasher. 

Anyway, Thursday ... blah, blah, blah editing ... yadda, yadda, yadda mildly-heated conversation with husband about how I didn't ask follow-up questions to clarify the cost of the dishwasher repair ... oh, and we went to Oodles of Noodles night at the pool. 

Title

Remember when I said that I was, like, the picture of discipline on Monday?  If you could quantify discipline on a scale of 1 to 100, Monday was like a 95 for me.  (I did have one completely unnatural off-brand freezy pop tube for dessert.)

Tuesday and Wednesday have been like a 2 and a 4, respectively.

Seriously, you guys, I am pretty dumb, and here's why.  So, I got my freelance work to do on Thursday of last week.  I was so wrapped up in the spirit of juggling and having it all and talking on the phone about important professional issues!  I was budgeting my time wisely!  And so, yesterday I raced home from the gym to make the most of the second half of Nathan's camp time, to find out that there was a "stop the presses!" moment, like kind of literally because some things have to be reprinted before I can edit them.

So, now I have all this unexpected free time, and I seriously don't know what to do with myself.  It's like I can't figure out what to do if I don't have to juggle all my personal responsibilities with work.  I can't remember what I did before having this freelance gig.

Which was like a week ago.                      

You know how they always say If you want something done, give it to a busy person?  That is so true.  After my brief taste of juggling, I'm back to no work and I feel like there is nothing to do.  And yeah, there are things I need to do, but I just put them off because I don't feel like doing them, and what's the point because I can do them tomorrow?   

So yesterday I mostly just sat around all day, looking at stuff on the Internets, and at some point I took a nap in there (husband was home to hang with Nathan).  I should not take naps, because when I wake up from a nap, it's like my body thinks it was hibernating all winter and I should therefore eat everything in sight.  This used to be huge problem back in the days when Nathan napped, because, and I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I pretty much took a nap when Nathan did every single day from his birth to when he gave up his nap at age 3.  (Well, except for when I was at work, of course.)

So after yesterday's nap I ate my peanut butter straight out of the jar with a spoon.  And then I ate Cheerios straight out of the box, which I am also embarrassed to admit is one of my favorite snacks.  Then we had Panera for dinner, which was probably not the worst food I could possibly eat, except after that I went across the parking lot to the shrine to grease known as Pop's and got a 49-cent ice cream cone.  Just cuz.

Today I was determined to do a little bit better.  After camp drop-off I went to the gym and did 30 minutes on the elliptical.  Here is what I have learned about the elliptical: I am not coordinated enough to do the one where you also have to use your arms.  With the arm one, I last like ten minutes, tops.  I can at least do 30 on the one where you just hold onto a bar and only use your legs.

I rode the stationary bike after that, but only because I wanted to get more miles in my Daily Mile report. 

After the gym I did something really very stupid.  So, I've been meaning to send an email of a job inquiry nature, and those things always scare me.  Too much possibility of rejection, you know?  So anyway, I told myself that I could get my nails done if I sent the email.  (Non-food rewards--yay Weight Watchering!)  But then I reasoned that it made more sense geographically if I got my nails done on the way home from the gym, not to mention that would be the only way I could do it while Nathan was at camp.  So, I had to get my nails done before sending the email. 

I got the cutest nails--white basecoat with the blue shatter topcoat, and seriously my nails look like they're made of denim. 

Except, that was like ten hours ago and I still haven't sent that email.  So, I kind of outsmarted myself there.  Take that, Shannon. 

Then after camp I told Nathan that I wanted to go to Starbucks.  He asked if we could go to Dunkin' Doughnuts instead.  And even though it was lunchtime and he should be eating something more wholesome than a doughnut, I said yes.  Because I had a gift card.  Yet another Mother of the Year moment. 

I got Bill a Captain America star-shaped jelly doughnut with sprinkles.  Because that would soften the blow when I had to tell him the dishwasher was broken. 

I think I did some other stuff in the eight hours between telling Bill the dishwasher was broken and now, but I can't remember what it was.  Except for calling the dishwasher repair people. 

Good thing more work has come in for me, or my brain might turn into a jelly doughnut.  And not a cute one with sprinkles, either. 

VIrtual Coffee

 

I have ten minutes to type this.  Then I have to pick Nathan up at camp.

I'm on my second cup of coffee for the day.  And by the way, my cup holds like 20 ounces, so that's really like two cups in one.  Except, I reuse the same K-cup and run it through a few times to get the 20 ounces, so maybe it's the same caffeine strength as an 8-ounce cup?  I don't know the math and science behind coffee brewing. 

I think I'm getting too addicted to caffeine.  I used to not really need coffee, and sometimes I would just voluntarily order decaf in the morning.  Then I got so I needed one cup, and now I'm well on the way to two.  It's a slippery slope, my friends. 

So, yesterday I think I was as perfectly disciplined as I could possibly be.  I got up at 6:30, got in a bike ride at the forest preserve, got Nathan ready for camp, emptied the dishwasher, did like six hours of my freelance job (half with Nathan here, half without), did laundry, cooked all three meals at home, went to the pool, kept the house picked up, wrote a blog post, responded to some emails, and ended the day with half an hour of reading. 

Who could keep up that kind of momentum every day?  Not I, even with coffee. 

This morning Nathan woke me up at 5:40, so there was no chance of doing any solo exercise before camp.  But I did get a blog post in, plus a lot of mindless Internet-surfing.  Nathan was a C-R-A-B because he woke up too early, so getting to camp was a battle, but once I dropped him off I went to the gym to swim laps for half an hour.  You guys, that was an angry swim.  I was mulling over some drama that's happening in my friend group, and I was kind of taking my anger out on the water.  I thought I could just swim and swim forever, but then when I briefly stopped to change lanes so the aquacize class could start, I realized I was exhausted and had to stop. 

I raced home, thinking I had to work on my freelance work, but there was an unexpected lull.  So I talked to my husband for awhile, and made coffee, and now I'm typing this post. 

Today we're going to the library, and then the pool.  I don't know.  I just found out I have more free time than I thought I would, so I haven't really made any plans.

Okay, time's up. 

Is This Woman a Hero or a Crazy Person?

Vigilante Mom Blows the Whistle on Disgusting Fast-Food Playgrounds

I may have mentioned in the past that McDonald's playland is a very important option for us when it comes to energy-burning activities during inclement weather.  Truth be told, there are many aspects of McDonald's playland that make it a darn-near perfect place.  It's nearby, with parking that is both free and close to the front door.  I, as a parent, can just sit there and supervise play without having to participate.  They have free wi-fi, so I can get some stuff done on the Internet while my kid is entertained.  Plus, everyone gets fed without my having to cook or clean up, and Nathan eats the food without any type of battle.  (Side note: I usually make Nathan get the apple dippers, so nutrition-wise, I think that probably makes me Mother of the Year.  Also the salads are very Weight Watchers-friendly.)  And Nathan tends to regard the cheap plastic Happy Meal toy as like the greatest toy he's ever owned, for 15 minutes at least.   

Sure, I feel uneasy about going to McDonald's, kind of like I've sold my soul.  But the whole fast-food thing certainly isn't the worst of the ideals I've compromised since becoming a parent, so mostly I feel okay about sitting under the golden arches from time to time. 

Which is why I eagerly clicked over to this Chicago Tribune story about a watchdog mom who is visiting fast-food playgrounds looking for germs. 

Erin Carr-Jordan is a 36-year-old Arizona mother who is visiting fast-food playgrounds nationwide and recording the sometimes-appalling conditions she finds.  In some cases she has swabbed the playground and sent the swabs for microbial testing.  (The article does not indicate the results of the microbial tests.)  She's so serious about her mission that she has incorporated fast-food playground-testing into her family's summer vacation travels. 

Now, on the one hand, some of the article's examples of filth at fast-food playgrounds are disgusting.  The article talks of hair, food particles, sticky surfaces, and something it calls "thick black schmutz."  (And look, I love a good Yiddish colloquialism as much as the next guy, but the term "schmutz" does not really give the reader a terribly accurate description as to what exactly is in these playlands.  Urban dictionary just defines schmutz as "random, icky stuff.") 

Of course I don't want my child playing in filth and schmutz, especially at a place where he also consumes food.  I'm glad somebody is calling these fast-food places out on their failure to keep play areas clean.  Certainly there are children with compromised immune systems--the article mentions that Carr-Jordan's partner-in-crime at the biology lab is the mother of such a child--and the world should be a safer place for these kids, and all kids. 

However, there's just something about this woman that makes her come across as a crazy person.  Maybe she just looks crazy in the picture that accompanies the article, in which case I acknowledge that it's unfair to judge a person as crazy just based on one random picture taken by a newspaper photographer.  But that look in her eyes suggests that she has just stumbled upon what she perceives as the world's greatest injustice, and doggonit, these people are going to pay. 

And for some reason I get the impression that she gets some kind of pleasure out of finding fault with the McDonald's playground.  When she peers through the window of the playground and mouths the words "The is bad.  This is really bad," I can't help but feel that she is really excited about the disgusting conditions she has exposed. 

I guess, to me, this situation just comes across as some white, middle-class mom who has nothing better to do than complain about fast-food playground conditions.  I mean, the part about how she incorporates the playground visits into her family's vacation?  That's weird, right? 

I guess I'd like to see this woman devote her energy to more important causes, like raising funds for research on the condition her biologist friend's child has that makes his immune system compromised.  Or maybe she could work on exposing the filthy living conditions of the poor, not the problems she has found at a few McDonald's franchises. 

I get it.  She has to start small, focus on something she can possibly change.  Charity begins at home and all that.  (Though I should note that she is not, in fact, at home if she's looking for bacteria at fast-food restaurants during her vacation.  She's from Arizona.  This article took place in Chicago.)  I guess, though, that I wish she would set her sights a little larger and focus on a bigger problem than fast-food playgrounds.  

SuperIma Dammit-It's-Not-Even-Close-to-Sunday Check-In

After original SuperIma Leigh Ann gave me such a sweet shout-out in her post, I went and waited until almost Tuesday to do my check-in.

I've been busy with my new life of juggling personal and professional responsibilities.  We have some issues to work out.  Like, for example, I learned yesterday that I cannot save any work to be done after Nathan goes to bed, because my brain is more or less fried by that point anyway, and it just makes Nathan's bedtime shenanigans all the more stressful. 

Mostly, though, I'm loving my new professional endeavor.  Let me see if I can make a dopey analogy here.  See, my stepdad has a saying, "The crap expands to fill the space."  The saying specifically applies to physical crap that you'd pack for a trip, as in, 0the more space you have in your luggage or vehicle, the more stuff you're going to deem essential to bring. 

I think "the crap expands to fill the space" relates to stress, too.  You more or less have a set amount of stress and mental energy you can devote to any given day.  Either that stress is going to consist of lashing out at your child(ren), getting frustrated by household chores, dealing with interpersonal relationships, or reacting to your professional job.  Or some combination of all those.  What I'm saying is, by devoting some of my stress allotment to a paying job, I find I am getting less stressed about dealing with my kid and my house.

Of course, I've only been at it for four days.  So it's probably too soon to tell. 

Anyway, with my new crazy have-it-all lifestyle (note sarcasm), I truly think this is the perfect week to set some good SuperIma boundaries. 

First, as I said, I'm going to do my very best not to save any editorial work for after Nathan goes to bed.  I can send work-related emails or do clerical-type tasks, but my brain is just too fried for editing after 8 p.m.

Also, I am making a list of chores that I want done by the end of the week, not chores I need to do every single day. 

I am going to wash and fold a load of laundry every day, because I'd rather do my laundry in small chunks than let it pile up.  But then, and here's the part where I let things slide, I am just going to fold the laundry and not worry about putting it away.  Currently I have folded laundry piled up in various clothing categories on my dining room table (not the kitchen table that we eat at), and I've just been taking clothes from the pile as needed.  It's like my Clothing Command Center.  I really think it's a lot easier to have all the clothing in one central location, as opposed to spread out all over several closets and dressers. 

I might try to get the laundry put away by the weekend.  Or maybe not.

Finally, I want to get serious about getting my new office set up.  As I said, I'm going to set it up in my guest room, and right now I'm just going in the guest room and doing my work on top of the bed.  So, excuse me here for using my blog as a to-do list, but in the coming weeks, I want to:

1. Call the painter and set up a time to get the room painted.  (Bill doesn't trust me to DIY.)
2. Get my poster framed.  (Got my JoAnn 55% off framing coupon tacked to my bulletin board!)
3. Buy a desk.
4. Figure out how to repaint the dresser in a funny shabby-chic purple distressed style.  (Is that what it's called?)
5. Buy a sofa bed.  (Might be more like a few months from now.  I'm not sure how much sofa beds cost.) 

------------------

In closing, on a completely unrelated note, I want to congratulate Same Old Shannon reader Josie on the birth of her son Jonah today!  When Josie told me that her c-section was scheduled for 7/11, I told her that Free Slurpee Day was such a great birthday, not to mention a cheap birthday party treat idea.  So, let's all congratulate Josie on her adorable new little Slurpee!

Oh and Also ...

Random other things I feel like telling you:

This weekend is the annual giant fair in my hometown (well, giant by this town's standards), and the community theater is performing The Beatles cover show Saturday and Sunday at the fair.  I'm just the emcee, but the general consensus of all involved parties seems to be that the kids just aren't putting a lot of heart into these performances.  I don't know if it's the heat, or people missing rehearsals for vacations, or just the general makeup of the cast, but the result is a show that's just kind of meh.  You might be thinking that it's really rotten of me to say this kind of critical stuff on the Internet, but I assure you that it's nothing that every single one of the participants hasn't said multiple times at rehearsal.  I guess it's still kind of rotten for me to say this stuff on the Internet, though.  Oh well, there are benefits to having a little-known blog. 

Anyway, the bottom line is that we probably won't go on to do our final performance of the show, which was supposed to be at the end of August.  So, today is our last show.  I'm kind of relieved because with the freelance work coming in ... I mean, it's not like I don't have time for both, it's just sometimes hard to mentally juggle these things. 

I am also supposed to be writing a script for an interactive murder mystery play, which will be a dinner theater kind of thing performed in January.  And the powers-that-be are hoping to make it an all-adult cast, so if you live near me and you're an adult, please consider auditioning.  It's so fun!  It's at least two hours a week away from your kids!

No, seriously, I do enjoy doing these shows, because they really do allow me to step out of the mom role for a little while.  Even when I have to bring Nathan to rehearsals, I still feel like there's a bit of a distraction from my day-to-day life.  What always makes it weird to me, though, is seeing the theater kids out in the community while I'm in the mom role.  Because even though it's not like I see these kids as peers, in a sense at the rehearsals we're all just performers doing a job.  Then I see the kids at the pool, and they're kids going to a pool, whereas I'm a mom in a mom bathing suit with her kid at the baby pool. 

In other news, Nathan is going back to camp this week.  So there's that. 

You know what I'm feeling bad about as a parent right now?  I really just don't feel like I have any hard-and-fast policies.  I mean, I don't have any hard-and-fast policies other than basic safety issues like "don't run out in the street," "wear your seat belt," and "don't take medicine unless an adult gives it to you."  But I feel like my generation of parents is all about hard-and-fast policies, like "I only feed my kids organic fruit," or "My kids are allowed one hour of screen time per day." 

The thing is, I'm overly analytical, so I always find exceptions to the hard-and-fast policies, making them hard to enforce and/or stick to.  Like, take the screen time one.  There are days when Nathan gets up and I whisk him away to some activity, and then the rest of the day we're either out doing things or else we're home and he's playing with his toys.  Those days maybe he doesn't watch any TV.  And other days I need to get something done, so he watches two hours of TV.  It all evens out.  I guess I also don't like the idea of making TV a "forbidden fruit" kind of thing that has to be regulated, like I'd rather just give him a life where TV is just one of the many fun activities you can choose from.  I guess I feel like we do enough other non-screen stuff, and I try to make sure he gets some form of exercise each day, so I don't think I need to create a policy on TV.

But, I still feel terribly guilty.  I wish we had a life where we always woke up at the same time, and we had some kind of strict schedule wherein we always do such-and-such an activity at such-and-such a time.  Okay, I do not wish we had a life like that.  I feel like we should have a life like that.  In actuality, a life like that seems tedious and unrealistic.  My husband doesn't work predictable hours, so it's not like I can always say that we eat dinner at X time.  I guess ... I don't know, I just always feel like I'm doing everything all wrong. 

Which brings me to the food issue.  The other day I was having a conversation with a woman who was telling me that her kids don't like a particular food item, and how the kids will eat that food cooked into this dish, but pick it out of that dish ... and seriously, in the course of the conversation she rattled off the names of like four food items that my kid won't even touch.  I feel so guilty about my kid's eating.  I imagine a perfect life where my family sits down to dinner every night, and I just serve my kid the main dish that I've made, and he eats it.  As it is now, sometimes we eat together, and I try to force my kid to have three bites of the main dish, but he usually ends up eating carbohydrate items for most of his meal.  And when my husband is working late, I usually just make Nathan a peanut butter sandwich for dinner.  Again, I'm pretty sure I have screwed this all up royally and everything's my fault. 

The fact that I take the blame for everything my kid does wrong makes it really odd when I have conversations with people who are just ready to blame every single outside person/institution/societal trend besides themselves for their child's problems.  Like, there's this mom at swimming lessons, and I don't really know what her name is, but I'll call her Susie.  So, Susie's kid, AJ, and Nathan go to camp together, and I mentioned that Nathan also goes to school at that same facility.  Susie asked how I like it, and I said fine, because I think we all know I'm not one to get all uppity about the quality of education at a preschool.  Susie complained that she had spent all this money on a different preschool for AJ, and she felt it had been very detrimental to his education.  She explained that AJ is very advanced academically (of course), and she had taught him all his letters and numbers, and he was ready to read at age 3.  But, she said, she didn't know how to teach him, so she outsourced his instruction to this particular preschool.  And then she said that the preschool really only presented learning opportunities that were beneath AJ, like he had to do a worksheet with letters on it, and he already knows his letters.  She feels they really set AJ back academically at this preschool, like from being advanced to just being average (her words).  Then she said AJ was misbehaving at school because he wasn't being challenged enough, and therefore acted out due to boredom. 

Now, I will say that having been an elementary school teacher, the "my kid acts up because you're not challenging him" argument is not my favorite.  While I acknowledge that there absolutely are situations where kids aren't being challenged, coming at the teacher and blaming her for your kid's misbehavior feels cruel and doesn't get you what you want.  You need to approach it more as, "What can we do together to make sure AJ is challenged and behaves appropriately?"

But that is really beside the point.  My point is, I just don't get how I'm ready to blame myself for every single little possible thing my kid does wrong, and then there are people out there who can't do anything but blame outside sources for their kids' problems.  Now, in actuality, I think maybe I take things too personally, whereas these people need to step up to the plate and solve some of their own problems.  As usual, it's probably best to take a middle ground. 

I guess people are just different.  Hmm.

On a side note, is it really the end of the world if your three-year-old has to do worksheets that reinforce the learning of letters?  It's not as if your kid's in fifth grade or something.  Also, in my experience, a very small percentage of the preschool day is devoted to formal academic learning anyway, so I'm sure AJ is learning many other useful things at that preschool, such as how to get along with others or how we celebrate particular holiday traditions.

Anyway, this post kind of took a left turn somewhere.  I guess I just needed to get some things off my chest.  

Episode 1: A New Era

Me: Come here, Nathan, I need to talk to you.  So, you know how Daddy does his work to make money?  Well, now I'm going to do some work to make money, but right here in our house.  So it's important that you don't bother me while I'm on the phone, okay?

Nathan: But you never did any work for money before ...

It felt like a dialogue out of every 1970s sitcom that did the very special episode called "Mommy Gets a Job." Following scene after scene depicting the pitfalls of a woman trying to juggle work and motherhood (Nobody picked up Bobby after Cub Scouts!  Why are we having frozen TV dinners again?!), the woman stands in her kitchen late at night and contemplates quitting her paying job, but says, "It just feels so good to finally be working." 

"Well, I think we can all find ways to help pitch in more around here," says the supportive dad. 

Cut to a scene where the whole family is standing around an organized chart/calendar setup.  Mom, in her smart polyester business suit from Sears, is giving directives about who needs to do what where, who will provide transportation, and what equipment needs to be brought.  Everybody's smiling ... cue schmaltzy music ... end credits ... and we're left feeling like all of America has ushered in a new era along with the fictional TV family. 

Now, I could obviously spend all day writing a treatise analyzing how much progress we, as a society, have made in terms of equal distribution of traditional "women's work."  And of course the division of household chores and childcare tasks varies from family to family.  But if I had to write one sentence to bottom-line this most complicated issue, I would say that while we have come a long way in terms of men playing equal roles in the running of a household (and I base this entirely on the fact that my husband no longer assumes I'm the only one who knows where the grocery store is), the reality is that women are still the ones largely carrying the burden of the work-versus-family dilemma. 

But the intent of this post wasn't to write a retrospective of 1970s-era television, or to analyze how far we've come since the days when a woman's place was in the home (and I should note that my entire understanding of those days is based on 1950s-era television).  I really just meant to write about my very first day of working motherhood. 

Caveat #1: I actually did work outside the home, first part-time and then full-time, until Nathan was 20 months old.  So this post is really just about my second wave of working motherhood.

Caveat #2: This new wave is really just a very small wave, doing freelance work from home a couple of hours a day.  So I don't mean to sound overly-dramatic, like I think I'm tackling the equivalent of an 80-hour-a-week high-powered executive job, Murphy Brown-style. 

But it isn't really about the hours, so much as it's about the momentous shift that seems to have happened in my mind during the last 48 hours.  I don't know if I can officially say that I've gone from SAHM to PT WAHM mom based on two hours of freelance work a day, but in my mind I've gone from Giant Schlub Who Can Piss Away Time All Day, to Vaguely Responsible Person Who Has to Juggle Professional and Household Responsibilities. 

I'm not gonna lie.  It kinda feels awesome. 

Except yesterday I maybe should have looked at those email attachments before I made that fish marinade.  And then already I've had the situation where the kid has a major meltdown while I'm on an important business call. 

These would be the modern-day equivalents of Somebody Forgot to Pick Up Bobby From Cub Scouts! and Why Are We Having Frozen TV Dinners Again?! 

Because nobody names their kid Bobby anymore, and I sort of not-so-secretly hope Nathan never wants to be in Cub Scouts, because I don't like their policy on not allowing gay leaders.  Plus nobody calls frozen dinners "TV dinners," we just call them "Lean Cuisine," and they're more for work lunches than family dinners. 

Times have changed, but some challenges are still with us.

But challenges notwithstanding, it feels so good to get back to a professional capacity.  My brain feels a little dusty in terms of multitasking, but as far as the actual work is concerned, it feels like I never left.  I'm glad it came back to me so quickly, because my biggest fear was that any amount of time I spent outside of my field would cause a huge career setback in this era where technology changes so quickly.  And I guess it's too soon to really determine that I won't experience any setbacks, but I'm just saying that as soon as you jump in, it all comes back to you really quickly. 

Now, all sitcoms end with that fun, light-hearted part that happens after the commercials, when the final credits roll.  I think my TV-loving friend Lenore said they were called "tags."  I guess the purpose of tags is to get you to stick around through the final set of commercials, which is probably not as much of a concern in this age of DVRs.  And, in fact, the tags are often the parts that the DVR cuts off.

Anyway, my tag is about Leia.  See, Leia is the only creature in the whole world who absolutely, unequivocally supports my return to paid work.  Well, specifically, Leia wants me to work at home.  Leia likes any change that means I'm going to be home more, meeting all her petting and cat food needs.  When I had my full-time job, I worked from home on Wednesdays, and so Wednesdays were Leia's favorite day of the week.  She knew I was ripe for distraction, and so she would take every possible opportunity to rub up against me.  Also, if she was really lucky, I would spread out large 11x17 papers all over the floor, and sitting on papers is one of Leia's very favorite things!  (Unfortunately for Leia, but fortunately for the earth, the editing is becoming more and more digital, so there isn't as much paper lying around.) 

And so, I look forward to what will hopefully be many hours at my roll-top desk, sleeping cat at my feet, fish marinating in the refrigerator, schmaltzy music playing in the background, credits rolling ...

Well, I look forward to the cat part, at least. 

 

Leia says, "Hooray working mothers!"  I considered posing her with some sort of prop that symbolizes working motherhood, but what would that be, exactly?  A breast pump?  A Crock Pot?