DC Metro Moms

Parenting with Your Parents - Where to Draw the Line.

It feels.. abnormal for me to be posting to the DC Metro Moms Blog while living in Oklahoma City, but the housing market crisis has put our family in an unusual position.  My husband works in DC, but we have two homes that have been on the market for almost a year in the state of Oklahoma.  We had been living in corporate housing (think over-sized hotel) in Virginia for nearly a year, which was MUCH longer than anticipated. Since we were approaching a year of "traveling residence," my husband's employer asked us (me) to pack our things yet again so we could return to Oklahoma and more aggressively sell one - or hopefully both - of the houses.  Uh, yay.

During this time my husband will commute between OKC and DC - which in my opinion is... insane in the membrane. We're not talking about a 30-minute drive here!  Obviously this is not the most ideal situation - as we have to research schools, where to buy a house when we return - and everything else under the sun, all while floating back and forth between two states.  Imagine the chaos and instability - I was only just starting to get a feel for real estate and the various educational options in the few weeks prior to moving back here!!  You would think the biggest part of stress would come from all this moving back, forth and eventually back... but that is not the case at ALL.  In returning to the home of my mother and father, I have discovered a line that needs to be drawn in the sand.  I'm standing with a stick, knowing what needs to be done - but when and how remains to be seen.

playGround

We went to the indoor mall playground the other day since the weather has been sooooo amazingly crappy.  I kind of hate going to that place - it sets off all sorts of germ freak-outs.  I sat there and literally watched some old man hack a lung up, wipe his nose all over the palm of his hand and then basically smear it on the happy tree all the children slide on.  NICE.  That wasn't the worst thing I saw that day - but honestly, someone might be reading with food in their mouth.

I immediately walked over and grabbed Faith.  I told her there were people who weren't feeling well, and she needed to make sure she didn't touch things and stick her hand in her mouth or eyes (like she would)..  I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but that was the best I could do in lieu of grabbing her like a football and marching straight out the gate.

However, I watched Faith running around - then she would run immediately over to me to give me updates about what she was doing.  I played tag AND hide and seek, but noticed Faith was kind of at a loss for how to just jump in with the other little girls.

lay off

I can almost see behind my head without moving a muscle - this is a talent I first noticed when working at a job I call "Crazyworld" on my personal blog.  I was the web designer and programmer for a large medical company - but my office was in marketing, so my boss had this brilliant idea that my monitor should be easily viewable by anyone who sat at the conference table.  I'm not saying I was blogging on company time, I'm just saying it sucked having every human who walked through/sat in our department staring at my monitor like a television in a doctor's waiting room.  I was mindless entertainment for the overly bored - and it was REALLY irritating.  I mean, who honestly works 100% of the time they are on the job?  Let's not kid ourselves here - even the big boss takes 5 for lunch at some point, but when the world is watching.... NOT POSSIBLE.

So... while I'm pretty sure this amazing peripheral vision has always existed within my person - I believe it adapted *as needed.*  This has REALLY come in handy at home, and especially while driving - but day before yesterday, it damn near caused me to chase a woman down in a re-surge of road rage (a habit I'd previously given up).  My "super power side-seeing" prompted.... the pointless, pissy honk.  In fact, it prompted probably the MOST pointless honk of my entire 38-year driving career.

The brap

I swear, when I started blogging three years ago I couldn't PAY anyone to check in on what we were doing.  I was one of those bloggers who occasionally sent out emails with the link to my blog and a message that reminded family they could actually see what their grandchild/niece/cousin looked like to date if they clicked the embedded link - and OMG... they could get updates - like if she was crawling, walking, had been recently hospitalized due to couch diving - all that great stuff. 

Now here I sit in the blog trap "or brap" as I like to call it.  I've got my family, my husband's family, their family, friends from highschool I haven't seen in years, my neighbors (well, before we moved) my ex-employer (who didn't start reading my blog while I was working for them... they actually waited until we were embroiled in a lawsuit - long story), my freaking ex-dog groomer (which in my world totally means "everyone and their dog")... HELL, I can't *blog* insinuate my daughter caught a cold from my sister's step-daughter without getting a call from my mother to tell me that no, my cousin's daughters

La La grows up

Last night we took our daughter, Faith to the Patriot Center at George Mason University to see "When Elmo Grows Up." It was one of those Sesame Street Live productions - but Elmo (or "La La" per Faith) was the star of the show. 

I'm sad I was one of the few parents who actually heeded the warning on the tickets to *not* take cameras into the show, so there are no pictures of Faith standing in her seat - happily marching along to the song and dance numbers.  However, it's a night that will be permanently etched in my memory forever.