Author Archives: Cindy

nobody wants to be the last kid at daycare

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Apparently the whole “working mom guilt” thing has officially kicked in. On Friday afternoon, I realized around 4:45 that I was going to have to stay late at work to finish a couple of quick things that needed to be done before the weekend. The only problem was that Dave and I had carpooled to the office together, so he was basically stuck, waiting around for me.

We left at 5:30, and I was thinking it’d be ok, but then we got stuck in HORRIBLE “it’s Friday so everyone is commuting home at the same damn time” traffic. And I panicked, because daycare closes at 6:00, and we were obviously not going to make it there on time. I had images in my head of Catie as the last kid there, crying and asking where her Mommy and Daddy were. I almost lost it on that drive.

(Aside: I’ve mentioned before that my parents are currently trying to sell their house and move up here, right? My mom keeps talking about how great it’ll be that they’ll be around to help out with Catie when we need them. At some point when we were stuck in traffic and not moving, I said to Dave, “Ok, you know what? I need my parents here like RIGHT NOW, TODAY.” Because it sure would’ve made my life easier if I could’ve called my mom at 4:45 and been like, “oh hey, I have to work late, could you pick up Catie?” Problem solved. So I really need someone to hurry up and buy their damn house so they can move here already!)

We got to daycare at 6:05 – not horrible, but we’re still going to have to pay extra for that 5 minutes (I forget how much, I think they charge you a dollar per minute that you’re late). I ran in, and it turned out that the teacher who had stayed with Catie happens to be the mom of one of the kids in her class. So Catie was having a great time, because it was just her and her friend, getting to tear the place up all by themselves. I apologized all over the place, and hustled Catie out to the car.

As soon as she was buckled into the car, she asked if we could go to Chick-Fil-A for dinner. And you know, I didn’t have any big meal plans at home, plus I was already feeling like the Worst Mommy Ever, so sure, why not? Dave didn’t feel well (I think he got carsick from my maniacal “AAAHHH get me to daycaaaaaare!” driving), so we dropped him off at the house, then headed over to Chick-Fil-A. Catie ate her dinner, then I let her play in the enclosed play area for about 45 minutes. She had a blast.

After that, we went to Target so I could buy her “Toy Story 3” on DVD. Because I am a sucker. Also because I loved that movie. Of course, she demanded to watch it as soon as we got home. I thought (wrongly) that she’d fall asleep on the couch during the movie, but she didn’t, and so she finally went to bed sometime after 11:00. Ugh.

(For the record, she seemed totally unaffected by the lack of sleep. Can’t say the same for me and Dave, though.)

The thing that sucks is that we had a really great weekend overall – we went to my cousin’s house for their annual Guy Fawkes Day party on Saturday night, I took her to the movies to see “Megamind” on Sunday, we had a blast together. I just hate how that one thing on Friday night made me feel so terrible that I spent the rest of the weekend feeling like I was trying to make it up to her. Even though she didn’t seem that bothered by it. That Mommy Guilt is a killer, I tell you.

About the Job

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People keep asking me how the new job is going, so I figured that I should probably just blog it and get it all out there.

It’s good. It’s really really good. The people are great, and the technology is pretty cutting-edge stuff and very interesting, even though a lot of it is WAY over my head. (I’m learning it. Slowly.) And yeah, ok, I’m working in a cubicle, but it’s a pretty darn large cube (like, I have way more desk space than I did at Microsoft where I shared an office with another person), and most everybody around here is really quiet, so it’s easy to concentrate.


This is my second nameplate because the first one said “Cynthia,” and I asked the office manager to please get me another one because nobody actually calls me that. She’s awesome and printed up a new one for me.

The main thing I’m struggling with is that it’s been four years – FOUR. YEARS. – since the last time I had a full-time office job. So even though it’s a very casual environment here (i.e., as long as I don’t show up in pajama pants, I’m fine; most of the people here are all jeans-and-t-shirts, all the time), it’s still weird just to go through the process of getting up early every day, making myself at least somewhat presentable, packing my lunch, etc. Add that in with Catie’s normal morning routine, and my mornings have gotten pretty crazy. I think it’ll settle down once we find our groove, it’s just that transitions (especially those that involve little kids) are never easy.

Also? I haven’t had to use this much of my brain for such an extended period of time in a really, really long time, so just that alone is kicking my butt. By the time the end of the workday rolls around, I feel like I’ve been flattened by a steam roller. It’s a good tired, a “wow, I really did a LOT today” kind of tired, but the exhaustion makes it hard to then switch back into Mommy Mode and really engage with Catie in the evenings. Again, this is stuff that I know will get easier over time. It’s just finding our “new normal” that’s rough.

Oh, and about Catie… Man. I guess I was naive when I thought that, hey, she was going to full-time daycare before and she’ll keep going to full-time daycare now, no big deal, right? I forget that she picks up on everything. So the fact that Dave and I are dropping her off at daycare together (because we’ve been carpooling), and then both of us leave together to go someplace she doesn’t know… it’s definitely thrown her for a loop. And she’s working me over like a pro.

Example 1: Yesterday she told me how she sat under the slide on the playground and cried for me because she missed me so much. (I thought she was b.s.-ing me, but her daycare teacher confirmed that yes, she really did do that.)

Example 2: At bedtime, she didn’t want me to leave her room or say goodnight. She said, “But I’ll miss you if you leave. I’m almost about to cry.”

Jeez, kid. Way to show a flair for the dramatic. And yes, I know that she’s just testing the boundaries of this new situation, which is all normal developmental stuff, but… Yeah. It gets to me. I’ll admit that I did stay in her room to snuggle and sing lullabies for an extra 15 minutes last night.

So that’s what’s going on here. Trying to find our groove and keep everybody sane and maintain a reasonable bedtime. It’s tough, but it’s also really good for all of us.

And you know what’s even better? I’m earning enough money that by next month, we ought to be able to afford a twice-a-month housekeeper. OH HELL YES, PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

Dress-Up Weekend

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I know a lot of people have little girls who dress up in some sort of costume every day. That’s normally not Catie’s thing, she’s not a big “playing dress-up” kind of girl. (Unless we’re talking about putting my bra on her head like Princess Leia hairbuns, in which case, yes, she does that almost every day.)

Something about Halloween, though, brings out the need to play dress-up for most kids, I imagine.

On Friday, as I mentioned, was Catie’s daycare Halloween party. Catie decided months ago that she wanted to be a unicorn for Halloween. My mom bought her this costume on eBay, and she has been loving on it and talking about it for ages.

Catie the Unicorn

The kids did a little parade around the building, which was fun, but that was when we first started to realize a problem with the unicorn costume: it’s kind of hard to manage four legs when you’re used to two. Catie kept tripping on the unicorn’s front legs. We brushed it off because she was so in love with the costume.

On Saturday afternoon, we went to our neighborhood Halloween parade, and again Catie wore her unicorn costume. She had so much fun, and it was such a beautiful afternoon, that she wanted to walk home rather than drive. No big deal, but again, she tripped and fell on the sidewalk in her costume.

Dave & Catie walking home from the neighborhood Halloween parade

Despite the happy appearance in that picture, she was pretty upset by the time she got in the house, and immediately took off her unicorn costume and announced she wasn’t going to wear a costume for Halloween at all. I suggested that she wear her dinosaur costume from last year (which still kinda-sorta fits), but she didn’t want to do that.

Finally, I had a light bulb go off over my head and I suggested that maybe she could wear the princess dress that Mimi made her? She tried it on once when she first got it, but she decided that the fabric was too itchy (which it sort of is, I get where she’s coming from), and she hasn’t worn it since. I pointed out that since it was cold, she could wear a long-sleeve shirt under it, so the itchy part wouldn’t touch her or bother her at all.

Catie the Princess

Mommy FTW!

Only, uh, I kind of assumed that since the neighborhood Halloween party was on Saturday, that everyone would be trick-or-treating then, rather than on Halloween (Sunday)? And… I was wrong. We went to 3 houses, all of whom seemed pretty surprised to see us, and the 3rd house didn’t have their candy yet, and that’s when I realized we were the only ones out trick-or-treating. Huh. We went home with many, many promises from Mommy to let her have whatever candy she’d just gotten, in addition to playing fun games at home, AND the promise of more! trick-or-treating! tomorrow!

It worked. And tonight we went trick-or-treating for real.

Catie the Princess

We hit just about every house on our street, and she was lovely and fun the whole time. In between houses, she kept telling me, “Mommy! This is the most fun party EVER!” And she was pretty much right, it was awesome.

I already can’t wait until next year.

P.S. New job starts tomorrow! Yay!

Candy Heaven

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Catie’s daycare is having a Halloween party on Friday afternoon. All the kids dress up in their costumes, they have a “parade” (read: they march in a circle around the outside of the building), and the parents all come to take a million pictures. It sounds like fun. I saw on the door to Catie’s classroom there was a sign-up sheet to bring food for the party, and since most of the options involved cooking or a lot of preparation, I signed up for “Halloween-oriented treat.” Right. Candy. I can do that.

I considered just buying a bag of something and calling it good, but I had to buy Halloween candy for our neighborhood kids anyway, and there are only 12 kids in Catie’s class. So I bought some festive tiny paper sacks and filled each of them up with a variety of treats. Catie helped me distribute the candy evenly among the bags, it was a fun little project for us. We even made an extra bag for her teacher.

One of the things that I bought – which, if I’m being totally honest here, I mainly bought for me, not for the Halloween party or for the trick-or-treaters this weekend – was a big bag of Nerds candy. I love Nerds. This bag was made up of tiny boxes of grape and strawberry flavors. My favorites.

So while we were setting up the treat bags, I opened a little box of Nerds for myself. Catie asked if she could try them. I said sure, she held out her hand, and I shook a few of them out of the box into her palm.

As soon as she put them in her mouth, she got this really weird, sort of far-away look on her face. I thought maybe it was too sour for her and she’d want to spit them out.

Me: Do you like them?

Catie: *nodding*

Me: It’s not too sour for you, is it?

Catie: (in a hushed, almost reverential tone) This is the best candy I’ve ever eaten in my whole life.

So apparently she likes the sour stuff, just like her mommy.

She asked if she could have her own mini-box of Nerds. Since I had wolfed down mine already, I gave her one, and she took off upstairs with it. I knew Dave was taking a nap upstairs, but I didn’t think anything about it.

Catie came downstairs a few minutes later. “I put some of da Nerds in Daddy’s mouth while he was sleeping to share them with him. Was that nice?”

I told her that yes, sharing is very nice, but it’s usually a good idea to wait until the person is awake. I was a little worried that Dave would choke in his sleep, so we went upstairs to check on him. He was awake, he said that he had been sleeping, obviously with his mouth open, because he woke up to Catie shoving candy in his gaping maw.

This is around the part where I died laughing. What makes it even funnier is that Dave doesn’t even like Nerds. He isn’t into sour candy at all.

Oh well. I guess for now, the Willy Wonka candy people can rest easy knowing that they just got at least one brand new fan this Halloween season.

employment

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I haven’t blogged for the past ten days because I kept thinking that I would hear something about this job one way or the other, and then I could do a big, “I got the job, yay!” or a “I didn’t get it, boo!” blog entry. But the truth is that there’s just been a ton of back and forth and I couldn’t seem to get a definite answer one way or the other.

But! As of today, it looks like… I semi-officially have the job! Yay?

Here’s the deal: apparently everyone on the team agrees that I’m a good writer. They liked my samples and they all thought that I did well on the writing test. But, there is some question about whether I’m technical enough or not, because… well, because I’m not a software developer, I guess. I’m not really worried about that part, I’m pretty confident that I’m really good at what I do. And I’m married to a software developer, so I speak their language well enough.

So, they’ve come up with a 60-day temp-to-perm job offer. They basically want to make sure I’m worth it before they fully hire me. And you know? That’s fine. I have no doubt that they’ll fall in love with me and decide that they can’t live without me and that they have to hire me forever and ever amen.

If all goes according to plan, it sounds like I’ll be starting on Monday, November 1st. I’m excited. And a little freaked out, since I haven’t worked in an office environment for about, um, four years. So I imagine that the transition will be a bit strange. But it’ll be nice that Dave will be in the same building. I plan to call him at his desk to ask him to fetch me a Diet Coke. I’m sure he won’t mind that at all. Hee.

Scenes from the zoo

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Because we’ve been back for two days and I still haven’t written about it (my brain, it is not cooperating with me these days), here are some pictures.

Near the entrance to the NC Zoo, there are these enormous life-size statues of elephants. We stopped to take some pictures. My mom saw this photo, and thought it was a real elephant, and she fuh-REAKED out. “Where’s the WALL?!! It could’ve KILLED her!!” Um, no, Mom. I’m pretty sure it’s not going anywhere.

Catie & the elephant statue near the zoo entrance

Although if the elephants were real, it would’ve made this moment with my brother all the more awesome.

my brother is funny

He’s hilarious. (We were trying to get Catie to agree to sit on the elephant’s trunk for a photo. She refused.)

As for inside the zoo…

Catie & a sea lion
Sea lions are awesome.

flamingoes!
The flamingo exhibit was hands-down Catie’s favorite. She started asking for them the minute we got there, and she was so excited when we finally found them. She’s normally more of a giraffe/zebra fan, I’m not sure why the sudden obsession with flamingos? Maybe because they’re pink?

Catie & Tracy
I love this picture of my sister & Catie. I love their contrasting hair colors.

And then, of course, the obligatory “we’re going to take some damn family pictures before we leave here.”

Tracy, Catie & Chris

My very exhausted & sweaty family

I think it’s hilarious how my brother and sister both look all well-rested and healthy, while Dave and I look exhausted, puffy, and pale. Guess which ones are the parents?

P.S. Still no news on the job front. Hoping to hear something one way or the other this week!