Job loss

I lost my job last week; it was unexpected and incredibly abrupt.  Matt asked what we should tell people if asked, and I said, "I did nothing wrong! I'm not ashamed," so there it is.  It wouldn't be prudent to get into the specifics, but I will say I've felt they were looking to push me (and perhaps, others) out for a while under new management and restructuring and they cited a bogus reason for termination.  It was done with spite and honest-to-god malice and I was out of the building within five minutes.  I was the girl bamboozled, walking down the sidewalk with picture frames and a fake plant in my bag, and other nicknacks I hastily grabbed from my cube.  I called my friend - who had left like a bat outta hell a few months before - and now works at her new gig (that she loves, adores, feels valued at) a block away.  "I'm meeting you downstairs in one minute!" she said, and we talked for thirty minutes on Market Street about how absolutely shitty that place is, the situation is, how, "Can you believe this?!" the thing is/was. She reminded me how toxic that place was, how I was deeply unhappy, how this is the push I need.  Sure, sure.  But I was just fired!, I said.  That sting (no matter how ridiculous or obtuse the reason).  That venom.

The thing with getting fired?  It's not as much the tactical concerns (although they are incredibly stressful - finding another job, financial worries, and so on).  The thing that kills me is this: it's the stripping away of any sense of self-worth.  I hate that they took that from me.  Work - even though I never loved it - made me feel more whole.  I feel devalued, dejected...all of that.

But...it's been a whole week now, and I've experienced more positive feedback and reinforcement from family and friends in this week than I have for the last two years at my former employer.  And for that I am so very, very thankful.  It's things like that that make me tear up now (I haven't cried about the job itself in days).  Like this email from Matt, which I re-read often:

Wanted to make sure you know how valued you are.  If [former employer and former manager] can't see it, it is entirely because of their own shortcomings.  You are lovable  smart, kind, charismatic, friendly, funny, loyal, and gorgeous.  You are a great wife and mother.  Annie and I will be happy to have you more to ourselves, and not wasting your presence on people who can't appreciate you.  We're going to be perfectly ok.  I can run some numbers if that will ease your mind a little.  I'm so sorry you had to go through this rejection, and my thoughts are with you as you figure out how to reconcile yourself with it.

(So he's not like that all the time, but I totally had to post that.)

Or when my friend (the lovely Danita) sent this, like, Visio-esque crazy chart mapping out available steps entitled "Mojo Rising: Operation You've Got Options, aka The Mojo Reclamation Project" (the girl has a way with words and a thing with titles, what can I say?...love you Danita!).  Or how friends are reaching out almost daily asking how I'm doing, saying let's go out for lunch, and sending me job postings.  Thank you, thank you.

One of the things I've cried over many times was taking Annie out of daycare.  Obviously, there is no reason for her to be in full-time care - and we can't afford keeping her there on a full or part-time basis - but she loves her friends there.  She wobbles with such joy to her seat at the table every morning, with breakfast in hand.  She and her friends giggle and screech and when we pick her up it's like, "Yeah, I see you, but as you can also see, I'm finishing something up here."  I love that she had that.  This week Matt and I visited a few in-home daycares in our area that allow two days a week (for my sanity, job searching, what have you) and that we can manage financially.  I also want her to continue to have that experience: to learn and cope with others, grow independently, discover things on her own away from us.  We're so proud of that girl, and I know she'll be fine, but it makes me hate this situation so much more.  Here are some photos of today at her last pick-up:

Two of her teachers, Mr. Eddie and Miss Holly.  Miss Holly knew her since she was a wee newborn at 11 weeks old.

So I'm not sure where this is going, or what my next step is, but there is beauty in all this ugliness.  Yesterday Annie and I had our first full day together and went to toddler time at the library and made a craft, then took a long nap together (she wasn't napping alone and I'm a bit under the weather).  Sweetness wrapped in a duvet.  Tomorrow we're going to our first local mom playgroup (I'm sure there will be more on that later).  And today I had an interview.  So...things - life - are moving along.  And in it's own way, it's still quite lovely.

17 Months

These last two weeks have been hard, for reasons both very big and small (big: legislation not passing, the Boston marathon bombings, small: work, always work). Which brings us to this past weekend, which was lovely. Sometimes I feel those two blissful days off are the only thing keeping me together, and I guess most people feel this way, right?  So many of us have these corporate gigs we so desperately need but I’m at the point where I’m daydreaming daily about just walking out.  Which isn’t healthy.  But then the weekend comes and I exhale and just say, “It is what it is,” and go on my merry way.  In my long-winded way, I’m saying this to you, Annie - as your mom I wish you this: I hope you find something that you love and loves you back.  

I feel you’ll get there: you are spunky.  And stubborn and demanding.  And charming.  Mischievous.  Loving.  I am too Germanic in my emotions but you light me up.  You have this sparkle - this zest - and make each weekend with you a neatly wrapped gift with a bow on top.  You also drive us mad and looking at each other, like, "What is wrong with this kid?!".  Take last night.  You hollered and cried and swung your arms to and fro, and no, I don’t want this, or that, and you just get me that, no, I mean this, waaaa!  Sigh.  You are a toddler.  You trip and it’s epic.  You drop your scrambled eggs and it’s epic.  We take away the raisins you were munching on and it’s like you simply. cannot.  survive.  And we try to emphasize, looking at each other and the pitiful raisins, but we just don’t get your toddler brain.

You surprise us with words.  “Bubbles!” while playing with your father outside with a soapy set.  “Elmo!” this morning as I flipped on the TV getting ready.  When did you watch Sesame Street?  You examine things every so closely - you live for being tactile - for figuring out how this clips to that, or who you can stack that.  You dig into the bucket where we keep Penny’s food, grabbing a handful of kibble while following her around the house saying, “Dog!” more and more urgently.  You love filling her food bowl and at school your teacher said you’ve really turned a corner (from what, I don’t know) and turned into a real helper.  You fetch a dropped cup for a child, or put a blanket on another during nap time.  You clean up.  It’s wonderful hearing your teacher say, “Oh, I wanted to tell you what Annie did today” and it being followed with that (instead of how you stole your classmate’s lunch - true - or bit another classmate - also true).  We’re very proud of the little person you’re becoming.

You also insist on going outside several times a day, and we oblige, because I suppose before you know it you’ll want to stay in, huddled with a computer (sigh).  So we walk around and examine the grass and push you high on your swing.  You give us high-fives with each pass and giggle.  You laugh a lot now, especially with your father.  He scurries around like a rat and hides, you chase him, and he chases you, until he catches you and you laugh laugh with glee in his arms.

You’re such a social baby at daycare and home, so it startles me when we run into a neighbor and you hide behind our legs.  Or when the cashiers at Trader Joe’s try to give you stickers and you stare at them blankly (until I take it for you and give it to you, happy as a clam).  This morning at daycare drop-off you you squealed as you burst into your room with milk and banana in hand.  You have a routine and were irritated as I was taking my time putting your things in your cubby before we could make our way to the drop-off room.  “I have people to see!” you seemed to say.  You’re already becoming your own, independent little person and hardly notice as we say our good-byes in the morning as you sit among your friends.  All toddlers at a tiny table, eating fruit and waffles and milk.

This week we went to the zoo.  We thought you’d like it, and did.  Your father said that’s it’s so exciting you can actually experience things now, which is true.  The day before we were at PetSmart picking out fish (whom you love to feed) and you were fixated on the cats up for adoption.  “Hiiiiiii!” you said and waved.  You screeched and gesticulated wildly.  You were beside yourself and didn’t want to leave; you loved peering into their enclose glass room trying to figure out what they were up to.  When one woke and looked at you, you were elated and took it as a personal victory.  So, the zoo was fabulous: you stared wide-eyed at a baby orangutan swaying in front of you, and loved as the otters swam past.  You fixated on the orangey-pink flamingos and enjoyed feeding a duck your lunch.  

You warm my heart, Annie. You do. You drive me to hide under my covers in the morning, but once I'm up you win me over again and again. Happy 17 months.

"Parenting is the long goodbye."

The title of my post - that quotation - was written by a pediatrician commenting on the NYT blog, Motherlode, and it made sit back and swallow.  Even though I was reading it when Annie was napping - and thinking, "Thank god that kid is down for a bit," and even when I groan when we hear her cries in the morning.  This morning - although going to bed late - her soft but escalating cries started at 6:20 am.  "Oh god, " I mumbled.  "Mmmrghf," replied Matt.  "You go get her - you went to bed before me, " I said.  No response.  Poking him, he mumbles.  Getting out of bed and bringing her into our bed, putting a pacifier in her mouth, soothing words - "Good morning, little one.  Let's all go back to sleep," followed by her reaching for my eyes, my nose.  Pulling my nose.  Even with all of that - and even when 7:30 pm (her bedtime) cannot come soon enough, and even when I'm loving, loving, loving every new milestone (she's walking!  she can ask for bananas and her milk and is twaddling behind us, between our legs, loves banding on the door to go outside to her swing, is making friends at daycare and sits in the corner with one of the girls and giggles!), and Matt and I are wholly, truly taking delight in the little girl - charming and mischievous - she's becoming, I cried.

It's all just a big pot of contradictions, but I suppose that's natural.  We love our kids to death, but they drive us crazy.  Matt and I love what daycare does for us - gives us that break, that breathing room - to be better parents when we're home with her.  Making those moments count.  I relish picking her up at the end of the day, but I love putting her down in her crib, too.  That balance makes our world go round.

Take my birthday.  Although it's over a month away, Matt keeps asking what I want.  Other than a Subaru (ha!), I need nothing.  And then it came to me: a clean house, some trashy magazines and some trashy television,  some Oreos for good measure, and a quiet afternoon alone.  Nothing sounds sweeter.

Easter Weekend

Annie, you have no baby book (oops) so I'm trying to update your comings and goings here, but my lord, have you seen how messy the house is?  And how impossibly tired (read: lazy) I am?    These are my new normals: a very messy home.  Dishes from two days ago by the sink (not ever even "in" the sink).  Dirty clothes on the floor.  Tripping over stuff...always.

I guess it's a balance.  Matt and I do not value a clean house.

Okay, fine, that's a total lie.  You got me.  I would love nothing more than a clean house, but I'm just so tired at the end of the day.  I suggested we get someone to do a clean quarterly in the house (as my birthday and Christmas and everything gift wrapped in one) and Matt was positively horrified.  I guess it's too bourgeois.  And how embarrassing, in a way.  I don't know how they possibly couldn't pass judgement on the way we live.  So he offers to clean - and does - but it's a pitiful job.

So here we are.  I have pink eye.  Again.  It's like when I got Hand, Foot and Mouth and you didn't.  I swear I need to wear a hazmat suit to pick you at daycare.  But things are well other than my goopy eye and icky house.  You are walking everywhere!  About three weeks you go up and just decided, "Fine.  I'll do this without prodding," and from there you were off.  You adore chasing Penny (of course) around the ottoman and teasing her.  The poor girl is panting afterwards!

Oh, and the best thing happened yesterday.  I was picking you up at school, and, laying there, was an incident sheet. But the offender wasn't you!  It was for the mild-mannered George, who (okay, I read the whole thing, sue me) apparently bite a classmate out of the blue!  Boy wasn't even provoked.  I was elated to find another troublemaker in the group and desperately want to cozy up to George's mom and dish on our sharp-toothed kids.  Fortunately, you haven't bit anyone this week, but maybe it's because I keep reading the refrain from "Teeth Are Not For Biting" that goes, "Ouch!  Biting hurts!"  while screeching the "ouch!" part.  You always look vaguely embarrassed.

You've been growing a bit more petulant at times, but also so much fun.  You snuggle and love being chased and giggle and hide behind our legs.  You still love bananas and walk over to where we keep them on the counter, pointing and saying, "Na-na!  Na-na!" and yesterday I gave you a string cheese stick and you chanted "Cheesh!" over and over again.  You also say "dog" and "all done" (ah dowwwn), but only rarely call me mama or your father dada. I guess you can't have everything. ;-)

Here are some photos from Easter weekend:

Molly (far left) totally makes this photo.  "Can't these bozos get their act together and take a good picture?!"

She's a biter

It's horrifying to find out your kid is a biter.  Annie comes from such gentle stock (ok, fine, perhaps not me, but Matt) and we were both quiet and good kids, so I'm not sure how she has become so willful and headstrong (and dare I say defiant?). Last week Annie's teacher took me aside at pick-up and told me she's had a biting episode each of the last four days.  "We're working on her words, because she bites when she gets frustrated," Tiffany said.  "I told her mouths were for eating, not biting.  I gave her a strong 'no!' and she just got up, walked across the room, and gave me a smug look that seemed to say, 'You don't say 'no' to me!'"  Upon hearing this I was tickled.  My firecracker.  Of course we were concerned, but the rest of the week there were no remaining biting episodes and I chalked it up to a toddler hiccup.  A little fun story to tell about my sweet, charming kid.  But today Tiffany said Annie had bitten again, and I was to sign an incident report.  The victim also receives their own report, which is horrifying to me as I feel ashamed and embarrassed for my little girl, even though I know she's not malicious, she just doesn't have the vocabulary to say say, "No, I was playing with that!" when her classmate grabbed her toy.  I went home and cried and told Matt, "What if the other family is very upset?  What if they want to know who the biter is?  (It's all anonymous.)  What if their kid was really hurt?"  It hurt knowing my child was getting an aggressive rep.  It hurt knowing that the other toddlers - as they become more conscious of these things - may learn to avoid her.

Annie doesn't bite at home - why would she? - there are no other babies grabbing toys or pushing.  She is an only child who, generally, gets what she wants.  Matt and I decided we needed to start being more firm with our discipline.  Throw your food on the floor?  You're done with dinner.  Want to "play" (e.g. bang) on my computer?  No longer.  She hates sitting with us and reading, but in teaching her to be more verbal, to learn how to start expressing herself rather than grunting, we decided we absolutely will make her sit and read with us each night.  We're not talking 30 minutes here - maybe 10!  But tonight she threw a tantrum that lasted until bedtime.

I read that biting is relatively common, and upwards of 1 in 4 kids will bite at some time.  I read that it is not a future predictor of behavior and it should pass.  But here's the thing - Annie just turned 16-months-old - girlfriend isn't getting a big vocabulary anytime soon!  And, I swear, that girl is getting sly.  She has a wild streak.  Last night at the grocery store she took things from the cart and dropped them on the floor.  I yelled at her - firmly and clearly - and each time she gave me this look that said, "Yeah?  What are ya gonna do about it?" I have a 16-month-old going on 16; lord help me.

One word: TROUBLE.

Mexican getaway

Matt and I were in Tulum, Mexico last week.  This was our first big trip since our Honeymoon almost five years ago.  We agreed on Mexico because I wanted tropical, and he wanted ruins.  The boy is obsessed with those damn Mayans, I tell you. 

Tulum is about two hours south of Cancun and an hour south of the big all-inclusives  “This place reminds me of Vegas,” Matt noted as we drove by the entrances of these mammoth hotels.  Big fountains, ostentatious fences and winding drives into their grounds.  Not that that’s bad, but we wanted small.  

Tulum is a funny mix: almost everyone here is white, either from America or Europe.  It’s half well-off tourists and half hippie enclave.  Everything is open air, and Christmas lights strewn in the trees and fresh fish, ceviche and good fruit.  The ocean water is teal and a few dogs, all belonging to the seemingly year-around transplants who run the dive shops and restaurants (and all beautiful, sinewy Europeans with long hair or dreads) - scamper on the beach, dodging the waves.  Our small hotel was literally on the beach and we fell asleep each night listening to the waves.

I’ve spied several topless woman (with great, small perky breasts...I mean, I would go topless too if mine looked like that) and a older, very pale man in a tiniest sliver of a g-string.  “That’s got to be a dare, right?” Matt said.  I replied that no, he’s just European.  “Don’t be so uncultured, Matt,” I added, although secretly thinking, “My god that is a sight...but I have to give it to him.”

And with that, here are some photos of our trip:

The beautiful view from our balcony.  

We're so used to getting up at 6:30 due to Annie, so we just kept the blinds open and rose with the sun every morning.  Gorgeous.

Every morning we ate breakfast on the beach.  This is Lorenzo taking our photograph.

We ate several of our lunches on our balcony and just picked up goodies from the local grocery store.  Here I am ogling the varieties of peppers.

Our Mexican rental car.  Note there is no clock, radio, or CD player.  The fingerprints are me pushing on it saying, "It has to be here somewhere!"  Sadly, no mariachi music for us on our drive down to Tulum.

Our hotel room. Very white.  Very austere.  Very peaceful.

Matt went scuba diving in a cenote, which is a water hole formed by an above ground portion of an underground river.  There is a complex maze of rivers, caves, and cenotes in the Yucatan.  We went swimming in one as well (photos later).

On the road to our hotel.  

Mexican bakery.  You KNOW I got my baked goods on!

I took a photo of this because I thought it would be Matt's last healthy hours on the trip.  He asked for a aqua fresca (flavored water) and asked if it was purified.  The waiter said "si" but with a glint in his eye.  Totally thought he was playin' us.  Anyway, Matt didn't get sick, so I guess that's good.
(Prices are in pesos, and the exchange rate is about 12 pesos/US dollar.  That's one cheap taco!)

We had a game throughout vacation calling "Lizard Spotting" (ingenius titling, I know).  Here I am with a bucket full 'o' lizards!

Visiting some Mayan ruins in Tulum on the beach. 

I'm smiling, but I'm already getting sick of these darn ruins.  Once you see one ruin, you've seen 'em all (don't tell that to the Mayans).

Then we went ziplining over a lagoon.

Take a look at this here action shot.

Now take a look at Matt in these photos...

Lounging back....

Relaxed....

Almost zen....

Then there's me hanging on for my life.  Schreeching.
Typical.

We fit in a little canoing.

Here's Matt jumping into a cenote.

Another view.

Here is Matt being suave (aka doing a flip).
Our guide - Raphael - said, "This one's good for the Facebook, no?"
Well said, Raphael.  Well said.  We'll have to upload this bad boy.

The next part of our little adventre was an underground cave tour!  It was pitch black
(these photos are taken with a flashlight and camera with a flash).

Making our way through the cave....doggy paddle style, yo.

Hands down, my favorite photo of the trip.  Bwhahaha.

Lunch on the balcony.

Matt and his lady friend.

I asked for "anything in a coconut, but it must be in a coconut".  You know, just for this photo opp.  Classy.

Matt relaxing.

This is Matt's favorite part of the trip, bar none.  He sincerely got a kick outta the old man in the g-string.  He said everytime he spotted him, he got 10 extra "lizard points".  (Boy was falling behind on the lizard points, let me tell you.)  Anyway, since Matt was so enamored he spotted this gentleman daily (look, this dude really piqued his interest), and thus clenched the win for "Lizard Spotting".  Unfairly, I might add.

Beautiful beach.

Nighttime in Tulum is magical: lights in the trees everywhere, people walking to dinner on the dirt road, flashlights in hand, and hotels aglow. Here is the pool at our hotel.

On our last day we went to Chichen Itza.  Matt was dying to go.  I was like, "eh, ruins.."  I know, I'm so jaded.

We also snorkeled and saw tons of sea turtles and took some underwater photos, which I hope to share when they're developed.  It was a terrific trip, but we were so happy to come home to Annie, who spent three days with my parents and three days with Matt's.  It's good to be home.