Justify

Something I just don't get about our society is how people wear their busyness like a badge of honor. The lowest blow in the working mom/stay at home mom debate is to imply that someone isn't busy enough. If you're not run ragged, you're not cutting it. No matter the effect all that busyness has on stress levels, sleep, eating habits, you name it. Busyness is next to godliness.

I don't try to compete with that. I am someone who is vastly affected by not getting enough sleep, not eating when I'm hungry, and not having time to myself. Maybe everyone is like me and most people just hide it better, I don't know.

My point is, I started a new job this week. It's interesting work in my field, with a mission I can support. It seemed like a doable commitment to sign on for while Petal is still little - 20-30 hours a week working from home.

I enjoyed the full day training sessions in the DC office this week. But after commuting back to the suburbs, I was zonked. There's no way I'd want to do that every day.

My mind started getting way ahead of itself, as usual. I jumped ahead five years to the time when Petal begins elementary school. And I thought, what if this is just what I did? I would be working doing something I enjoy, and I would have plenty of time during the workday to exercise, clean, and maybe even cook!

I don't know if I'm brave (good for me for following my own path!) or lazy (I can't hack it in the real world!) for plotting to get out of the rat race all together. Maybe a little bit of both.

Amazed

Watching Petal demonstrate new skills and make connections between things is an absolutely enthralling experience. In my still-novice opinion, the most awe-inspiring part of parenting is watching a tiny creature who has little beyond instinct to guide her in the world slowly (and sometimes quickly) make incredible cognitive leaps and bounds and become a reasoning, rational mini-person. Petal is a fairly verbal child, but there is still so much she can't tell us with her toddler vocabulary. So watching her demonstrate how well she understands us, concepts we had no idea she was grasping, it just takes my breath away.

Holy typos!

Guess I still have a few kinks to work out (see previous entry.)

Dragged into the Digital Age

I am typing this on my new IPad! And Jack will be doing his reading for school on his new Kindle Fire once the semester begins. He threatened to rerun the IPad yesterday because I had refused to take it for a spin due to my well-documented Fear of New Things. But when Petal went down for her afternoon nap and Jack prepared to head for the grocery store, he told me to play around with it. That sounded a lot more appealing than folding laundry, and by the time he got back I was hooked. And the laundry still isn

It Shall Not Be Vanquished

Petal's stomach bug hit me Thursday afternoon, but I was much better on Friday and we thought we were safe to make the Northward journey. Christmas Eve in Connecticut and Christmas Day in Maine went off without a hitch. But last night Shakira was hit. Then Petal got sick again - she hadn't thrown up since last Wednesday morning so I was really surprised. I spent most of the night up with Petal and during the night I realized my brother was sick too. Jack flew back to Maryland yesterday evening, but I woke up to an email from him that he'd gotten sick in the night also. Now my mom is fighting off waves of nausea. Blech.

Another Milestone

Petal has her first stomach bug. I could get really descriptive here but I will spare you. But as I threw soiled bedding directly into the washing machine last night, I remembered reading about urban mothers schlepping bags of similarly befouled laundry to the laundromat and was so, so grateful to be here in our townhouse with the roomy basement and laundry facilities. And also incredibly grateful for Jack as we tag-teamed comforting the baby and cleaning up the mess. I just hope this bug will move swiftly and not put a damper on my baby girl's Christmas.

Fail

A woman from my Moms Club converts VHS tapes to DVDs as a home business. So I was psyched to give her the tape I'd found in my parents' house labeled "Norway '97" and have it converted to give as Christmas gifts. Until yesterday when I received an email that I had actually given her a tape of, among other things, Shakira and her friends listening to The Doors and using bad language. It sounds really funny so I'm still getting it converted, but it's hardly something I can give my grandmother for Christmas.