Sleeping Is a Drug for the Sleep Deprived

On Sunday, we spent all day cleaning out the one car garage. This room was a big storage area for things like my roller blades that I haven’t used since I met Brian 7 years ago and about 25 books on computer subjects like operating systems and programming languages. It’s not that I really want some of these things but it takes a long time to sort all this stuff. So we buckled down and got to business. While I would not call myself a pack rat, I do like to hang onto things that have emotional or sentimental value. For example, I found a cassette tape that my friends and I had made at the 10th anniversary showing of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” in 1985. We were Rocky Horror virgins but didn’t want to look like virgins and ended up looking like the biggest virgins ever. Instead of toast to throw, we brought English muffins. Instead of newspaper to put on our heads during the raining scene we brought a big umbrella. I think we brought pasta or risotto instead of rice. The tape is pretty much us talking and of course hearing other people say things like “MUFFINS? Who’s throwing muffins? I don’t remember any muffins.” In the garage I strapped on my walkman and listened to the tape and cackled the whole time. The second cassette tape I found was my brother-in-law and my sisters doing a rendition of me on a camping trip in 1995 when I drank too much Black Velvet. The third cassette tape that I kept was one of a europop song that was on the radio 24 hours a day when I was in Ireland in 1996. I threw away all other cassette tapes including the original Madonna tape and a bunch of others that had songs from the radio taped on them. Remember doing that? We would call the radio and request a song and then hover by the radio with our tape player to tape the song so we didn’t have to actually purchase the tape. And then the DJ was always talking over the song. I also couldn’t rid of the various purchases I made in other countries like clay tea pots from Hong Kong and a jade statue from Malaysia. But for most of the stuff, knick knacks, computer books, etc… it was fairly easy to get rid of since it was just starting to look like clutter. I do reach a threshold where I can’t get rid of any more stuff but fortunately we were able to get just about everything on shelves.

This week was a really rough one at work. I don’t want to go into it and bore every one but I feel like I’m trying to walk uphill wearing concrete blocks tied to my ankle. Your management and co-workers can make your job easier for you or harder for you and right now it’s harder. It’s not something that they are intending but it sure makes my life more miserable.

I finished the second book by the author who wrote “The Devil Wears Prada”. It’s called “Everyone Worth Knowing”. I thought it was kind of boring at the beginning but got better towards the end. I’m looking forward to starting to read the book club book “My Sisters Keeper”.

On Wednesday I took my car to the dealership (Acura) to get my 60,000 mile tune up. They had work stations with wireless high speed internet, coffee, espresso machine, all kinds of drinks, cookies, and fruit. Plus phones to use. I’m thinking of working there instead of working from home two days a week.

I dropped off all of Ty’s 0 – 3 month clothes plus his baby bathtub at a place called “Maggie’s Place”. It’s a “house of hospitality” for homeless pregnant women, or women who need to get out their current homes for whatever reason. They can stay there until the baby is about 6 months old. The thought of selling Jack and Ty’s stuff doesn’t really appeal to me—I wanted to donate my stuff to a place where they would really need and appreciate it. The staff member who lives at the house with the women gave me a tour. The babies were really cute and I wanted to cry when I was there but I didn’t. I don’t know why I wanted to cry other than anything to do with babies and kids can make me cry. I think it’s a mother thing.

I was expecting Thursday and Friday to be really difficult because Brian was flying to Santa Clara on Thursday morning and coming back on Friday night. But Brian missed his flight Thursday morning. This is the jet that is owned by my company that seats about 38 people. He showed up too late and they gave his seat to someone who was waitlisted. I feel really stressed at the thought of missing a flight so I leave a little earlier than most people. For example, when I take the company plane, I leave 30 minutes before Brian does! But sometimes that line of thinking helps because I have never missed a flight. The good news is that I didn’t have to deal with the boys by myself on Thursday night. Brian flew out Friday morning and got back late Friday night so I had to deal with the boys by myself but that went fine. Ty is going to bed a little bit easier nowadays.

My friend Libby flew in from Austin on Friday night and our mutual friend Sarah picked her up at the airport since I was alone with the two kids. Libby and I met when we were 19 years old and were working at NCR as a co-op and intern. We worked in a male dominated environment—she was an electrical engineer and I was a computer scientist—and became fast friends. We lost touch when she went back to Clemson and stopped her co-op. We became friends again when she moved back to Columbia after getting her masters and I was getting a divorce. In fact, Libby testified on my behalf at my divorce proceedings because I was in Arizona at the time! So we have a lot of history together. We ate dinner, some chocolate cake, chatted and watched Dancing with the Stars. Libby spent the night with us and on Saturday, Libby and I went to Pane Bianco for tomato and mozzarella sandwiches. We sat outside and it really nice although it got a little chilly in the shade so we had coffee drinks from the coffee bar next door. We then met Brian and Jack at IKEA where we spent a couple hours walking around, talking and shopping. After IKEA, we spent the afternoon with the boys, sitting outside. Libby was teaching Jack how to use the pedals on his tricycle while I fed Ty. It’s so nice to have another set of hands in the house! After dinner, I gave the boys a bath and when I was getting Ty into his pajamas Libby washed Jack’s hair. I wish I could have a helper all the time. Saturday night we met up with Sarah and had sushi and went to Graham Central Station. This is a bar/club where they have four rooms: a karaoke room, 80’s room, hip-hop room and country room, although they didn’t always play country in the country section. This is where all the non-Scottsdale type people go. It was the weirdest cross-section of Phoenix I have ever seen. There were several couples in their 70’s, one of them was jamming on the 80’s dance floor. Lots of men in cowboy hats. The parking lot was completely full even before 10 PM. I couldn’t believe how crowded it was. I hung out until about 11 and then left Libby and Sarah and Gary there since they are single and don’t have a baby to wake up to at 4 AM. Libby and I met up with Sarah at IHOP with Ty in tow and had brunch. I left Libby with Sarah so they could have some alone time together and went home to spend time with my family. When I got home, Ty and Jack were asleep so laid down and it felt so good… like I was floating on air. I think sleeping is the best drug ever.

Father's of the 2000

I think we women in the 2000’s are pretty lucky. I’ve been noticing men carrying babies in Snuggli’s and Baby Bjorns more and more over the past couple of years. Today, at the park, I noticed that almost all the kids were being led around or carried by their fathers. Now granted it is a Saturday but if we had our kids 30 years ago, we would raise our kids with little help from our husbands. I don’t think my father ever changed a diaper. Sure they played with us every now and then but mostly our moms took care of us. Brian is typically the one who changes the kids’ diapers when we go out. He doesn’t seem to mind and I know the kids hate the changing tables so I let him do it. How awesome is that?

Another thing I noticed is that my view on cooking is changing. Previously, I have pretty much avoided it completely, even though I have had two husbands (both are excellent cooks and therefore cooking skills are not necessary). But then kids came along and it made sense for me to be able to produce a meal every now and then. I still cook pretty basic things like meatloaf and spaghetti but the thing that has changed is that I like having a meal on the table for my family. I like the feeling that I am “taking care” of my boys (including Brian). Perhaps I am finally becoming domesticated after all these years.

I managed to take my class without too much stress about when and where to pump. It started at 9 AM so I was able to do the first pumping at home and we got a big enough break for lunch that I was able to come home and do it. And we got out a little early so that worked out. This class was grueling. It was about this really complicated software that we run our supply chain on. I’ve never really been someone who learns by sitting a class and even though we were practicing on the system, it was still difficult to pay attention.

Thursday night I sucked it up and went to a Project Management Institute meeting. See, I took that test to become a Project Management Professional and I got certified. To maintain my certification, I have to earn 60 PDU’s. These are units of stuff like attending presentations and training that indicate that I am staying current with the latest and greatest project management techniques. I have a Computer Science degree and worked as a programmer for years and then other various functions around software and hardware for years after that so I am very used to being around a lot of geeks. But what I didn’t realize is that there are not only computer geeks, there are Project Management geeks. These are people who are oddly excited about project management and eagerly share their views and opinions on the subject in a large room with a bunch of other people like them. AND OTHER PEOPLE SEEM TO BE INTERESTED. Now I think project management is pretty cool and definitely useful but I really don’t like going somewhere after working all day and talking about it some more. After listening to the speaker talk about trust and requirements and then hearing various people in the audience give their little tips and tricks from their workplace, I really couldn’t get out of there fast enough, even though I was supposed to “network”. I really hate that word. And I only got 1 PDU for this. I can’t do this 60 more times. I don’t think I can do it 1 more time.

Friday we went to eat at Z’Tejas where we like to order a bunch of their ½ price appetizers. Unfortunately they no longer have my favorite appetizer “crab cakes”. Saturday was a very busy day. We went to Connor’s birthday party at the train park where Jack and the other kids got to ride a train several times and ride a carousel. They had a great playground too. Brian, Jack and Ty took naps when we got home and I went down to the greenbelt to attend a Homeowner’s Association meeting. We had it outside and they had snacks and a big bouncy thing for the kids so there was a big attendance and we got to talk about the hoodlums in the neighborhood. I’m going to join a neighborhood watch group. We met a lot of people with 2 year old boys and also met a new potential baby-sitter. We ended up staying for 3 hours! This kind of day wears out the kids quite nicely which means they sleep really well. And that is where they are right now. Well, I think I’m going to catch up on some TV now.

Oh, I Forgot

Yesterday as I was walking into work, I realized that I forgot my badge. So I went back out to my car as I approached my car, I stumbled and because I was hauling all this crap into work (laptop, purse, lunch, breast milk bottles, etc), I couldn't regain my balance and I went crashing down to the asphalt, hard. Of course, the very first thing I do, even before assessing my injuries, is look around to see if anyone witnessed this very ungraceful event. Of course, someone had and as they approached me, they asked me three times if I was OK. Even if I broke my leg, I probably would have told him I was fine just to make him go away. I picked myself up, got my badge and went into the building and straight to the cafeteria as normal to order my morning eggs. A guy I've never talked to before said, "You going after the grunge look?" I looked at him puzzled and then down to my jeans and there is a huge stain and a hole in the knee of my jeans. Crap. I walked around like that all day. I started to feel like I had been in a car accident. My neck hurt and my back hurt and of course my knee hurt. A manager wanted to have me file a safety report. At my work, if you injure yourself, you're supposed to file an incident report so that they can do root because on the issue that caused the accident and fix it. Since the incident was solely my clumsiness, I would hate for anyone to spend time root causing my incident!

Blah Blah Blah

This was a super long week. On Tuesday I took Ty to his 6 month well-care visit. He weighed about 18 lbs and was 27” long. I’m not sure when long becomes tall. Maybe when the kid starts walking. I started reading “A Million Little Pieces” for book club. It’s a book about a guy’s stay in rehab at the age of 23. He was addicted to alcohol, crack, a bunch of other things and sniffed glue on top of that. He started getting drunk at the age of 10. You would think that he would have really slacker crackhead parents but he didn’t. They seemed rather normal. This struck some fear in me because I would like to believe that parents of drug addicts have done something really rotten to their kids to make them the way they are. I don’t want to spoil it if someone is going to read this book but they did find something odd that happened in his childhood that potentially is the cause of the extreme anger he has for his parents. I read this book for book club, which was on Friday night. I showed up an hour late (because I put the kids the bed before I go out) and I missed the 1 minute discussion on the book.

On Wednesday a friend had breast augmentation (I won’t put her name in case she doesn’t want that broadcast). Everything went well. I don’t see how anyone could fault a mother who breastfed 4 kids for wanting this done. On Wednesday night I had the opportunity to go a really nice steak restaurant in town, paid for by my boss, because we had a meeting with everyone on my team and he was buying dinner for everyone. But I already had plans to meet up with Jill M, Liz and Kim C who was visiting from Delaware. We had an excellent meal at the Havana Café. Their plantain chips with the black bean dip is excellent. On Friday I got an eye exam because I wasn’t seeing as well as I used to. I had LASIK in 2003 to correct my horrible 20/700 vision and have seen 20/20 since then, even with a slight astigmatism in my left eye. I only have a slight change in my vision… not even worth getting glasses but I wanted to get a pair of prescription sunglasses to make my vision a little crisper for driving. I picked out some Ray Bans and then got the new prescription put in my old glasses. It will be 2 weeks before I get the sunglasses. On Friday after work, Brian and I took the kids to California Pizza Kitchen. The kids were pretty good. I had to take Ty home to feed him and put him in bed. Afterwards I rushed to book club and showed up an hour late. The topic for the evening was about sex and breasts as usual which seems odd since it’s a bunch of women. It was rather entertaining.

Saturday morning I went to get my hair cut and then met up with Brian and the boys at the zoo. Brian has been going to zoo with the boys and meeting up with some guy friends and their kids. Jack has a really good time with the other kids. While we were there, we ran into Jackson and his parents. Jackson is Jack’s best friend from day care and his parents are the owners of our day care. Jack decided to abandon his other friends and happily held hands with Jackson as they walked through the zoo. It was very cute. Two year olds are definitely not homophobic. Saturday night I actually watched a movie, which is rare for me because they require a 2 hour investment and half the time I don’t think the movie is worth spending that much time watching. We watched “Million Dollar Baby” which I actually liked. On Sunday morning I visited my friend who had the breast augmentation. I thought they looked really good—very proportional for her. Late Sunday afternoon we went to Jill and Gert’s house for dinner to let the boys play. Liz and Inigo showed up with their kids. The kids had a good time playing. I didn’t get to watch Grey’s Anatomy or Desperate Housewives because “24” was on. “24” is Brian’s favorite show. Ty had a little bit of a fever so Brian and I had our normal lengthy discussion about who would stay home with him on Monday. This is probably the worst complication to deal with when there are two working parents. Brian had to run his staff meeting and that usually trumps whatever I have going on, but this time I was running a meeting from 10 – 3 and someone was flying to AZ to attend so I had to go to work. Ty still felt a little warm on Monday so Brian stayed home with him. Fortunately, Ty can be self-entertaining so Brian got some work done. Monday night I had a meeting with India and we watched the Golden Globes. Tomorrow I have a class in a hotel. This is problematic for me because of the pumping. I really don't want to pump in the restroom so I drove to the hotel and discussed my options with the sales director. It's stuff like this that makes breastfeeding so difficult for working moms! Last week I had two all day meetings with my boss and his staff. This time I told him I would be taking my breaks so he pretty much had me set the break times for the meeting. That was cool.

Pink Eye

I’m not sure how I can sit here and write for this blog when I know we haven’t sent out of Christmas cards yet. I thought they could be Happy New Year cards but that has passed us by. I wonder if they make Martin Luther King cards? Well, maybe President’s Day.

Thursday morning I went to the dentist and arranged to get my zoom whitening done in July. They don’t like to do it when you’re breastfeeding and I thought I would do it right after my next cleaning. Teeth whitening is one component of my extreme makeover. Later on that day, I got the second laser treatment for my spider veins. It definitely hurts more than hair removal, even though it takes less time. I told that to the woman zapping me and she said, well you were numb for the hair removal. I said, No I wasn’t. I went to Affordable Laser for the hair removal and when they make it affordable, they mean a strip mall in a bad part of town with no numbing and if you’re lucky, you can get some aloe vera put on the area when you’re done. I have no regrets about doing that though as I now have hairless arm pits, a tidy bikini line and only have to shave my legs every week versus once a day. I could use a few more treatments on my legs but it’s so significantly reduced that I’m not sure that I really care. I was a little disappointed in the vein treatment after the first round but I didn’t realize it was a multiple treatment thing. But after the second treatment, I think I’ll have better results. I’m starting to think that my veins don’t really bother me that much after all. I wonder if self-tanner would cover the whole mess plus the few stray hairs I have on my legs?

Friday I worked most of the day but made a trip a Costco during lunch. This was a very oddly painful trip. It’s warm here so I was wearing my rubber flip flops and I was getting shocked on the cart and on the refrigerators about every 15 – 30 seconds. I was almost in tears by the end of the trip because it was getting painful. Never again will I wear those shoes to Costco. I wonder if my hair was sticking straight up.

I picked up Ty a little early from day care to get some quality Ty Time and there was a notice on the door at day care “PINK EYE” is going around. UGH. I walk into the infant room and lo and behold his eye is red. CRAP. You can’t bring your kid to day care unless they have been on eye antibiotics for 24 hours. I can’t get into the doctor at 4 PM on a Friday and there is no freaking way I’m going to sit in an urgent care with 200 other people with the flu. So I made an appointment for 7:30 AM on Monday and resolved to take the day off work on Monday.

Friday night I met the girls at Cyclo, a Vietnamese restaurant in Chandler. Kim, who moved to China a few months ago, flew over to attend her grandfather’s funeral. A sad reason to come out here but we were all happy to see her. I didn’t know that Cyclo was BYOB which is always nice because you aren’t paying 10x the retail cost for a bottle of wine like you normally do in a restaurant. Jeanette arrived late and informed us that she was late because one of the guys running for the mayor of Chandler asked her out on a date. Of course, I knew him because I’ve attended a couple of city council meetings, including the one where all the women were breastfeeding in the audience to protest some anti-breastfeeding laws. He is a very handsome man and is a very prominent bachelor in our town so we were all very proud of Jeanette and will probably vote for him just so we can say that our friend is dating the mayor. I did stop to think… what criteria exactly do you use when you vote for a mayor? I don’t think they declare themselves Democrat or Republican. Anyway, Kim wasn’t very happy with the way the people who are renting her house are taking care of it. Actually, they aren’t paying rent because they are taking care of the dogs. If I had that arrangement, I’d be bending over backward for the people who set me up with that but I guess some people are ingrates. (Sorry, Kim).

On Saturday we went to some friends’ house in Phoenix. They are moving to Austin, TX which is quite a nice town. My friend Libby lives there and works for Dell. It just doesn’t seem like it’s Texas there. The party was early enough so that we could take the kids and they had it catered by a Mexican restaurant. By 7:30 PM, Jack was overtired to the point of hyperactivity so it was time to go. On Sunday, Brian took Jack and Ty to the zoo to meet up with Gert and Connor while I went to brunch with Missie. Missie and I enjoyed our regular meal of eggs benedict at the Cheesecake Factory. Missie’s husband doesn’t understand how we can go to the same place every time we meet for brunch but when you only get to meet up every 1- 2 months, it’s like a new meal! We drooled over purses and watches at Coach and then went to Williams Sonoma for a single serve coffee demonstration and tasting. The coffee maker was $399 and used those pods that looked like half and half creamer containers. It was tasty but Brian drinks way too much coffee for that to be economical. He would go through 10 pods a day at least.

I got to spend some quality time with Jack the rest of the day. We kicked the ball outside in our fake grass. He kicks the ball better than me. Part of me was proud and the other part of me felt kind of pathetic. But maybe flip flops aren’t the best shoe to wear when you’re kicking the ball around. Ty and Jack took their very first bath together. It was so cute. Ty would splash and of course Jack thought that was funny and had to splash even bigger. When I’m getting Jack’s pajamas on, Brian comes running into the room and I’m thinking something horrible has happened to Ty and it turns out that Ty has a tooth! It’s a sharp little thing sticking out of the gum so that explains why he is a bit fussy these days. HE REALLY IS TEETHING.

Bright and early Monday morning, I took Ty to the doctor to check out his eye (which by the way, was not red all weekend… a little watery at times but not red). I made a huge mistake of going on the 202 to I-10 and spent 45 minutes fighting the horrible traffic that some people face every day. Of course, I had only allotted 25 minutes to get there because it only takes 15 minutes under normal conditions. Doctor says… doesn’t look like pink eye. Looks like part of his cold. Woooo hoooo! Drop Ty off at day care (workers are suspicious but I assure them doctor gave him the A-OK).

At work there is a new person in the mother’s room and she’s using my spot. See, there are 2 spots. One spot has the communal pump that I use and the other spot has a place for your own pump. She has her own pump but yet she is using the spot that has the communal pump. I feel a little territorial because I have logged about 325 hours in this room and I have squatting rights. We will have to see how this plays out.

Snow in Phoenix

On Friday Brian worked and I wanted to get a massage so we took the kids to day care for a while. I was able to get quite a few chores done and got everything off the Christmas tree so that Brian could get rid of it. He called the city to pick up the tree but they refused to take our address. The city of Chandler said that they just drive around looking for trees on certain days. This makes no sense at all. And is especially problematic for people like us who live in a gated community. I doubt the Chandler Christmas Tree Pick-Up Vehicle will just happen to be driving around our neighborhood. Needless to say, the tree was still in the road the next day. And the next day. And finally Brian just loaded it up into his car and got rid of it.

Saturday morning the zoo had a big pile of snow so we decided to go when they first opened to allow Jack to see snow for the first time. They open at 9 and despite our best intentions, we arrived at 9:40 and the place was an absolute zoo. Ha ha. I was able to maneuver my way to the middle of the snow mound with Jack and proceeded to be pelted every 2 seconds by snowballs. The place was frenzy of kids throwing snow in various forms from handfuls to giant spheres. I guess as a post-partum adult, I was a pretty large target. We left the zoo and the parking lot was completely full. I went and got a facial to finalize my post-traumatic stress Christmas pampering. Saturday night was New Year’s Eve and we had our friends Deb and Joe and Ger and Ter over for snacks, wine and games. Everyone showed up in their pajamas which has been our tradition for a few years. It’s awesome to just hang out in your jammies and be wonderfully comfortable. We played the 1990s Trivial Pursuit which I thought I would be good at but I was not. I knew that there was a cinnamon bun that was formed into the shape of Mother Theresa and I knew that Washington Irving wrote “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” but I don’t know anything about video games and we got a lot of those questions. Did you know that National Security Administration banned Ferbies from the NSA building because they were a national security threat? Brian actually got that question correct. But by midnight I was so ready to go to bed that I started to get a little crotchety. I just can’t stay up that late. Did anyone see Dick Clark? I had mixed emotions about seeing him on his New Year’s Rockin Eve show. Apparently he had a stroke and so his speech wasn’t the same and he just looked so different. I felt sorry for him but I’m pretty sure Dick Clark doesn’t want us to feel sorry for him. It’s just that he seemed so young just a few years ago. Made me think about my own mortality.

I got up by 6 AM on Sunday since Jack got up. Sunday was pretty lazy and I spent a lot of time doing things around the house while playing the VH1 show, “I Love the 1990’s”. I love those shows on VH1. I actually learned a few things that would have helped me on that Trivial Pursuit game. I’ll be ready for next time!

On Monday, Brian and I had the day off from work and we decided to have a date since we could take the kids to day care. We went to the restaurant, Postino, and had bruschetta and wine and sat outside because it was just a beautiful day. Then we went to Kierland Commons to walk around and do a little shopping. It felt just like it did before we had kids. But then by 3 PM I needed to pump so that was back to reality. But to have that time together was just awesome. We don’t do that enough.

After pumping, I went to visit my friend Chelle who had a baby four weeks ago. She was trying her second VBAC but her uterus ruptured so they had to do a C-section. About 2 weeks later they found a blood clot. She is fine now but what a scare. Her only symptom from the clot was a fever and that’s because some bacteria had gotten into her bloodstream. So it took a while for them to figure out she had a clot. Her baby was very cute and he was doing a lot of those baby stretches that they do when they are sleeping. Then I went to Annette’s house to say good-bye since they are moving to Colorado. It’s always sad to see people go.

Overall Ty is sleeping better but will wake up a couple times during the night and Brian (who has been on baby duty the last week) has a hard time getting him back to sleep. We’re both getting pretty tired!