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I just had one of those "I have to blog this" moments. It was the morning rush at the Starbucks drive-thru, which gave me a lot of time to sit in my car and stare at a poster in the window of the Hallmark store next door.
The sign indicated that the 2008 Hallmark keepsake ornaments debuted July 12.
July?!!!
My old Mac laptop from my single days crapped out a few months ago, leaving all forms of un-backed-up electronic media locked inside its defunct little walls. (Yes, I know there are ways to recover these things. No, I haven't done anything about that.)
I realized yesterday that it was time for a replacement. Husband was headed out of town with our other laptop, leaving my only computing option to be our desktop computer in the basement. Now, while this is technically our newest, best computer, it is also located in our basement, home of all the boxes we never unpacked when we moved, umm, a year ago. Being down there stresses me out. I certianly didn't want to be trapped down there during my telecommuting day this week.
Continue reading "I Should Not be Allowed to Own Electronics " »
I need a break. But I don't feel like I deserve one.
Here's why I don't feel deserving. First off, we just went on vacation two weeks ago. I felt relaxed then, or at least as relaxed as a you can be on a plane-based vacation with a toddler. You can't argue that you need a break two weeks after getting back from vacation, right?
Second, I think maybe there's a part of me that doesn't think I have a right to complain at all, ever. I know I have a cushy life with my cleaning lady and grocery delivery. I have a supportive husband and I only have one child, for crying out loud.
It's my Chicagoversary! Four years ago, my brand-new-husband and I packed up our car and drove cross-country with our cat to live in Chicagoland. We settled in a nice rental house in the suburbs.
You know how some people have lived all over the place? Well, I'm not one of them. I lived my whole life in the same city in Southern California, only leaving to go to college. (Go ahead, click that link. That was the actual view from my dorm room.) So moving across the country was a big deal for me. I had never lived outside of California, and neither had anybody in my family. Moving to Chicago was a big deal.
Having moved from Southern California, you can probably guess what I don't like about Chicago. But like any anniversary, this is a time to focus on the positive.
We've all seen this commercial for the anti-depressant Cymbalta. As sad music plays in the background, we see depressed people sitting in darkened corners, their heads hung low as their kids look puzzled and their dogs remain unwalked. Then we see the Cymbalta logo, and a flash-forward to these same people in their new Cymbalta lives. Families are happy and frolicking outside. A woman has acquired what appears to be the cutest kitten ever.
Cybalta is just the anti-depressant advertisement du jour. Before that there was the one for Paxil (or was it Zoloft?) where everyone is represented by little blobs, and the one several years ago where the depressed woman is caught in a rainstorm while the sun shines down on the rest of the world.
No matter the drug, the basic premise is always the same. Bad life --> drug --> good life.
I was never one of those moms who cared very much about having a meaningful birth experience. The way I saw it, birth was just a horrible chore to be endured for a relatively brief period, and then you got to have a child for the rest of your life.
I didn't have a written birth plan. All I knew was that I wanted to take full advantage of all that modern medicine had to offer, and I did. I was induced with pitocin, had IV drugs a few hours later, and then had the almighty epidural.
But there was one modern trend I never expected to have to experience: the c-section.
Yesterday my good friend and colleague announced her pregnancy at work. There's something about a pregnant woman that draws out every mother's stories of her own experiences. I spent yesterday hearing pregnancy and breastfeeding stories dating from the 1970s to the present.
As for me personally, I was a huge ball of nerves my entire pregnancy. I got the positive pregnancy test on a Friday, and I spent the following weekend sobbing. Even though the pregnancy was completely planned, I just couldn't accept the major changes that were about to happen in my life. I worried how motherhood would affect my marriage, my career, my friendships, and just my life in general.
Continue reading "I Just Realized How Complicated This Whole Motherhood Thing Is " »
My grandma passed away last week. I hate it when people say that somebody's death was "for the best," but in Grandma's case, it kind of was. She had been lonely and depressed for quite some time, since everyone she knew and loved had either moved away or died. She spoke of how hard it was to not be needed by anyone anymore. She said she mostly sat around alone all day and watched TV.
Like most older people, Grandma longed for the good old days. Her good old days began in the late 1940s, when she and her husband scraped together enough money to afford the down payment on an $11,000 house in a brand-new suburban development. She raised her two children there, and most of her neighbors were young families, too.
I was thinking about my grandma this morning as I did the marathon morning routine with my toddler, the one that always makes me question my competence and happiness as a working mother. Grandma's child-rearing experience was so different from my own. But was Grandma happy?
Chicago is a great city for kids. There's the awesome Crown Family PlayLab at the Field Museum, the fountain to splash in at Millennium Park, and the all-out kids' fest that is Navy Pier. And those are just the obviously touristy places. Chicago has tons of fun (often free) activities for kids.
But not for my kid. My kid is only 15 months old.
The other day my co-worker and I got into a conversation about elementary school spelling tests. (I work in the educational publishing industry, so conversations about school-related topics are fairly common around here.) I recalled the following traumatic experience from my childhood:
My second grade teacher had a really awesome incentive system wherein any child who got 15 perfect spelling scores in a row got to ride in the teacher's car to McDonald's for lunch. Avid studier that I was, I quickly sailed through 14 perfect scores and showed up on the day of the 15th test with a note from my dad giving me permission to ride in the teacher's personal vehicle.
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