Here are just a few things that have been on my mind lately:
1. I figured out the way to clean my closet. It turns out it is more or less like anything else; you have to do it one thing at a time. It took me an hour and a half and there is still a small pile of stuff I don't know what to do with, but my clothes are folded and organized and I can see my entire wardrobe again.
2. Phoebe is, I think, growing again. She's been sleeping more than usual lately. I've also noticed that her feet are flat against the bottom of her Exersaucer, and when we put her in it for the first time a month ago, her toes were just brushing the bottom.
3. Though things are starting to pick up a tiny bit at work, I am incredibly bored most of the time and have been for awhile. It leaves me in the soul-crushing position of hating every second I am there and wanting to quit on the one hand, and being terrified that they will fire me on the other.
4. I am tired all the time. I am tired when I wake up in the morning, and tired when I go to sleep at night, and tired every minute in between. I feel like I shouldn't be this tired; after all, I barely do anything besides sit on my butt and surf the internet and play Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook all day. Occasionally I'll make or receive a phone call. Not exactly expending large amounts of energy.
5. Caetlin is so adorable when she plays costumes (dress-up) with the variety of dresses and costumes we have for her. She puts her fairy wings on and "flies" around the house. Thank you, "Alice the Fairy." ("I have wings so I can fly! I can't fly very high yet, but I can fly really fast!")
6. I finally dragged my father-in-law onto Facebook, so he can see all the pictures of the girls that I post there.
7. I often wish I were 21 and in college again. I wish I hadn't sped through my college years. I was petrified of not finishing. Neither of my folks finished college, though they both made several stabs at it over my lifetime (and prior to my lifetime). Somehow I absorbed that to put off or even slow down school was to fail to finish at all; this despite my sister's model, who by the time I went to college had completed two undergraduate degrees. The same reasoning led me to law school immediately after college, when I could have probably used some time working in between. I really wish I hadn't completed college in essentially three years. I wish I had taken more time. Even though I am only 32, I begin to understand the cynical phrase, "Youth is wasted on the young."
I could go on like this all night, but see point 4 above.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Three
Yesterday at the indoor playground, her little voice calling, "Mommy!" rang through my ears, and I marveled that she meant me.
She made me laugh, too, being silly, a fake har-har-har that cracks me up every time. And then we jumped in the bounce house and collapsed in a pile of giggles.
Later she ate pizza and peaches like a big kid, went potty like a big kid, put her shoes on like a big kid. She is a big kid.
She is so competent, so mindful of herself. When did she become a complete person, entirely separate, with her own wants and preferences and destiny?
She amazes me daily, with everything she is and does and wants to be. She is more like me than not, these days, and by that I mean that at three years old, she is closer to being a grown up than she is a baby. I know that sounds hyperbolic, and I know she has a lot to learn still, but she's fundamentally her own person. She doesn't need me, not like Phoebe needs me.
I am so lucky to be her mom. Happy birthday, my wonderful amazing girl. Who is growing up far too fast. I can't wait to see what the next year brings.
She made me laugh, too, being silly, a fake har-har-har that cracks me up every time. And then we jumped in the bounce house and collapsed in a pile of giggles.
Later she ate pizza and peaches like a big kid, went potty like a big kid, put her shoes on like a big kid. She is a big kid.
She is so competent, so mindful of herself. When did she become a complete person, entirely separate, with her own wants and preferences and destiny?
She amazes me daily, with everything she is and does and wants to be. She is more like me than not, these days, and by that I mean that at three years old, she is closer to being a grown up than she is a baby. I know that sounds hyperbolic, and I know she has a lot to learn still, but she's fundamentally her own person. She doesn't need me, not like Phoebe needs me.
I am so lucky to be her mom. Happy birthday, my wonderful amazing girl. Who is growing up far too fast. I can't wait to see what the next year brings.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Pack Rat
Tonight, I hated myself.
I have a closet in the bedroom that I share with Bruce. About 3/4 of the closet is my stuff, but there isn't enough room for my stuff even with that much space. What I really need are (big enough) shelves or drawers, because there is plenty of room for the hanging clothes, but the folded stuff- T-shirts, yoga pants, jeans- that's usually a crazy mess. Over the last couple of months, however, the crazy mess has gotten out of control. The closet may technically be a walk-in- even completely empty there's room to take about one step in- but lately, all I can do is peer in from the closet doorway and hope I can find what I need. There is a pile of clothes mixed with other things that is about as high as my hip on the floor in the closet, and it makes the closet almost entirely unusable.
This condition was born of good intentions. I had wanted to sift through my closet, reorganize and weed out and make everything pretty and accessible. I wanted to remove my maternity clothes and bring back my old wardrobe, and I wanted to be able to find everything. That required pulling a large amount of stuff out, off the shelves, off the floor, off the hangers. I got halfway through and got tired, so I shoved it all back in with the intention of finishing up another day.
And I never did.
I have hated the way my closet looks. I hate the lack of functionality. I hate that I wear the same five outfits every week, because it's what I can reach and find. I hate that there are things buried in there that I have forgotten I own, things I would find useful.
Last week I was determined to fix it, to clean it up for good. Bruce has been on a kick of reducing our stuff lately, and fixing the house up in general, hanging pictures and packing up books we've read and giving stuff to Goodwill. Inspired by his example and feeling continually ashamed of my closet, I pulled everything out of the closet and into a pile on my bedroom floor, thinking that if I could see it, I could make a plan of how to deal with it.
It sat on my bedroom floor for a week and a half, untouched, just getting in the way of my scale and dirty clothes hamper.
The ladies who come clean the house every two weeks are coming tomorrow, and it was unthinkable to leave it there for them. We don't pay them to organize my clothing; we pay them to clean the floors and bathrooms.
Rather than face the pile, I threw it all back into the closet.
I hated myself when I was doing it. Every armful of clothes I dumped into the shadows of my closet floor whispered my failure, my inability to take care of even the smallest things at home. My inability to hold it together when I am working and the rest of my family carries on without me, my failure to be useful for my family beyond my paycheck.
It was especially reproachful in considering the hour and a half my wonderful husband had just spent cleaning his parts of the room, while I sat and looked at a computer screen. As if I don't do enough of that at work, but somehow it was the only thing I could make myself do this evening, even as my daughters were bathed and dressed for bed and had stories read to them and fell asleep. If there were a time-lapse video of my evening, it would be Bruce and the girls swirling around me, while I sit on my bed behind a laptop, barely moving.
I barely move a lot these days, metaphorically speaking.
I don't know when I'll be able to deal with the closet. It seemed so symbolic, the packing away of mess behind a door, leaving a tidy exterior. I look like I have it together. I look like a good parent, like a provider, like someone "having it all" in the parlance of the feminism I was raised on.
I know the mess waits for me, even as the door is closed, though. It's not just that I don't know when I'll get to it. It's more that I don't know how to deal with it. In some ways, it's just about folding the clothes and finding a place for them. But the the folding overwhelms me. The finding the place for them overwhelms me. I just don't know how to manage it. I don't know how to unpack it, organize it, make it useful again. I just don't know how.
I have a closet in the bedroom that I share with Bruce. About 3/4 of the closet is my stuff, but there isn't enough room for my stuff even with that much space. What I really need are (big enough) shelves or drawers, because there is plenty of room for the hanging clothes, but the folded stuff- T-shirts, yoga pants, jeans- that's usually a crazy mess. Over the last couple of months, however, the crazy mess has gotten out of control. The closet may technically be a walk-in- even completely empty there's room to take about one step in- but lately, all I can do is peer in from the closet doorway and hope I can find what I need. There is a pile of clothes mixed with other things that is about as high as my hip on the floor in the closet, and it makes the closet almost entirely unusable.
This condition was born of good intentions. I had wanted to sift through my closet, reorganize and weed out and make everything pretty and accessible. I wanted to remove my maternity clothes and bring back my old wardrobe, and I wanted to be able to find everything. That required pulling a large amount of stuff out, off the shelves, off the floor, off the hangers. I got halfway through and got tired, so I shoved it all back in with the intention of finishing up another day.
And I never did.
I have hated the way my closet looks. I hate the lack of functionality. I hate that I wear the same five outfits every week, because it's what I can reach and find. I hate that there are things buried in there that I have forgotten I own, things I would find useful.
Last week I was determined to fix it, to clean it up for good. Bruce has been on a kick of reducing our stuff lately, and fixing the house up in general, hanging pictures and packing up books we've read and giving stuff to Goodwill. Inspired by his example and feeling continually ashamed of my closet, I pulled everything out of the closet and into a pile on my bedroom floor, thinking that if I could see it, I could make a plan of how to deal with it.
It sat on my bedroom floor for a week and a half, untouched, just getting in the way of my scale and dirty clothes hamper.
The ladies who come clean the house every two weeks are coming tomorrow, and it was unthinkable to leave it there for them. We don't pay them to organize my clothing; we pay them to clean the floors and bathrooms.
Rather than face the pile, I threw it all back into the closet.
I hated myself when I was doing it. Every armful of clothes I dumped into the shadows of my closet floor whispered my failure, my inability to take care of even the smallest things at home. My inability to hold it together when I am working and the rest of my family carries on without me, my failure to be useful for my family beyond my paycheck.
It was especially reproachful in considering the hour and a half my wonderful husband had just spent cleaning his parts of the room, while I sat and looked at a computer screen. As if I don't do enough of that at work, but somehow it was the only thing I could make myself do this evening, even as my daughters were bathed and dressed for bed and had stories read to them and fell asleep. If there were a time-lapse video of my evening, it would be Bruce and the girls swirling around me, while I sit on my bed behind a laptop, barely moving.
I barely move a lot these days, metaphorically speaking.
I don't know when I'll be able to deal with the closet. It seemed so symbolic, the packing away of mess behind a door, leaving a tidy exterior. I look like I have it together. I look like a good parent, like a provider, like someone "having it all" in the parlance of the feminism I was raised on.
I know the mess waits for me, even as the door is closed, though. It's not just that I don't know when I'll get to it. It's more that I don't know how to deal with it. In some ways, it's just about folding the clothes and finding a place for them. But the the folding overwhelms me. The finding the place for them overwhelms me. I just don't know how to manage it. I don't know how to unpack it, organize it, make it useful again. I just don't know how.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
I'm Not Gone
Honey, I'm home! Did you miss me?
Seriously, I have not abandoned the blog. Funnily enough, I often think of things I'd like to write about, but by the end of the day, my writing time, all my thoughts and desires to put any of it to metaphorical paper have bled away. Part of it is Farm Town, the damnably addictive game on Facebook. I'm obsessed with planting my crops and growing my coins so I can buy stuff to make my farm pretty. Within the last week I've realized that the real money is to be made harvesting for others, so I've been trolling the chat rooms for jobs, like almost everyone else who plays the game (that makes it sound so seedy. See what I did there- seedy?? I crack myself up). This takes up enormous amounts of time, so it seems.
Part of my lack of motivation is that I am almost always tired, and for the last week I've been battling a nasty cold. It's been hanging on for over a week now, and it's knocked both kids flat on their cute little behinds. Phoebe has been hacking periodically, and Caetlin wakes up every night at least once crying because she can't breathe because her nose is so stuffed. I hadn't taken anything for my cold, because decongestants tend to dry up milk a bit, and I'm ultra-paranoid about keeping my production up. So it's been hot showers and the neti pot and lots of tissue. I finally gave in last night so I could get some sleep, and the medicine helped quite a bit. I haven't had a cold this bad for a very long time, and I have to say, I don't recommend it. Bruce has been lucky enough to avoid it, though he's clearly been fighting it off, as he's been extremely tired all week.
Anyway, you may note that the last post was dated July 24. That was when I started the post, and it's been sitting three-quarters finished since then. I'm not sure why I couldn't finish it, or why I finally did, but I hope I'm back on the blogging bandwagon.
Seriously, I have not abandoned the blog. Funnily enough, I often think of things I'd like to write about, but by the end of the day, my writing time, all my thoughts and desires to put any of it to metaphorical paper have bled away. Part of it is Farm Town, the damnably addictive game on Facebook. I'm obsessed with planting my crops and growing my coins so I can buy stuff to make my farm pretty. Within the last week I've realized that the real money is to be made harvesting for others, so I've been trolling the chat rooms for jobs, like almost everyone else who plays the game (that makes it sound so seedy. See what I did there- seedy?? I crack myself up). This takes up enormous amounts of time, so it seems.
Part of my lack of motivation is that I am almost always tired, and for the last week I've been battling a nasty cold. It's been hanging on for over a week now, and it's knocked both kids flat on their cute little behinds. Phoebe has been hacking periodically, and Caetlin wakes up every night at least once crying because she can't breathe because her nose is so stuffed. I hadn't taken anything for my cold, because decongestants tend to dry up milk a bit, and I'm ultra-paranoid about keeping my production up. So it's been hot showers and the neti pot and lots of tissue. I finally gave in last night so I could get some sleep, and the medicine helped quite a bit. I haven't had a cold this bad for a very long time, and I have to say, I don't recommend it. Bruce has been lucky enough to avoid it, though he's clearly been fighting it off, as he's been extremely tired all week.
Anyway, you may note that the last post was dated July 24. That was when I started the post, and it's been sitting three-quarters finished since then. I'm not sure why I couldn't finish it, or why I finally did, but I hope I'm back on the blogging bandwagon.
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