Category: One of those days

Posted on

Ramblings of a pregnant girl

Because that’s pretty much how my mind’s working these days, and yes, I still call/think of myself as a girl, even at age 33. Moving on…

So I REALLY can’t believe that Della won’t be my only child in what could be a matter of days. Yes, this pregnancy was planned and not a surprise, but I guess it never dawned on me how much I was going to miss having just her little self running around. I just hope I can be a good mom to both of them when Dv2.0 gets here. I know a newborn needs a lot of time and attention, but there’s no way I’m going to ignore anything about D. I just hope I can handle it.

This time being home with her and not working has been so much more enjoyable than I expected, I can barely stand it. I absolutely love being everything for her all day, even though I’m sure there’s stuff she’s missing out on that they’d be doing at daycare. No, we haven’t done nearly as many art projects as I would have liked or arranged as many play dates or explored more books at the library, but I think she’s still learning and progressing as she should be. She says more and more words each day, she’s excited to see us when she wakes up every morning, she really has had zero major meltdowns, and she’s just so happy. That’s most important and a good sign, right?

It honestly gives me anxiety now when I have to think about going back to work at some point next year. I have been able to do some editing/proofreading work since my job ended this summer which definitely helps to tack onto my severance bundle, and it’s something I would love to continue year-round as a work-at-home gig. Whether or not I could actually build up enough of it to really count as even a part-time second income is the wrench in the plan. I bet I could, but I think I would need 1-2 days of daycare each week back to get big chunks of work done. Especially with 2 kids at home, I’m not sure how well it would work trying to get multiple hours of editing in each day and juggle their demands at the same time.

Speaking of 2 kids, where are the Cliffs notes for how to do that? Before I knew I would be jobless when Dv2.0 came, it was easy – D would be in daycare during the days still, so I could focus all attention on the baby for a couple months. Then when I went back to work they’d both be going to the same place. Simple as pie. Now, I have no idea how I’m going to survive after that first week when I’m home alone with both. D is such a great kid I really don’t think she’ll have a total attitude reversal and turn into a pint-sized terror, but who knows. I just hope the baby is as great and calm as she was. If we get a colicky kid on our hands this time, I may not be so composed as I was with D as a newborn.

I hope D adjusts well to Ryan doing more stuff with/for her when the baby comes, stuff that I mainly do now, simply because I’m here all day with her. Like right now she doesn’t want him to read her bedtime stories anymore, just me. Which is weird, since she’s always loved having both of us do it. I think it may have something to do with the fact that she now likes to pull up my shirt and put her head on my belly when we rock before she goes to sleep so she can be with the baby, but I could be totally wrong. It is super cute, though, how she does that. She always says, “me baby” and just rests her head down there with her arms at my sides. I about die. I hope it’s a good sign that she’ll actually be excited to see and know the baby when he/she arrives instead of feeling any sort of jealousy or resentment.

Like I mentioned in my weekly pregnancy post on Friday, I am now done with my pre-baby to-do list, and that elates me. I have really been worried that we’re just going to be totally unprepared when this kid comes for some reason, but having all the stuff crossed off that bad boy eases my worries a lot. The crib is clean and set up and D’s in her big bed well; the car seat is washed and ready to be installed; we have a bassinet again; the newborn clothes are washed and put away; the newborn diapers are stocked; etc., etc. Now I’m just willing that kid to stay put for a couple more weeks, and we’ll be golden. I just need to remember to keep cherishing these days with just D while I can.

I’m planning to make a couple batches of meals to freeze this week, just another thing to get ready for a house with a newborn again. Lasagna, spaghetti bake, another chicken casserole-type dish. You know, some staples. This is definitely not something I even thought about when D was born, but I figured that since I’m home and should have the time, it’s something I should do, right? How did I get all this stuff accomplished when I was pregnant with D and working full-time? I guess it was a little easier back then because there wasn’t already another kid in the house, but this time should be easier too since we already have all the baby essentials from her.

Hmm… (it’s funny because D now imitates me saying “hmm” all the time, complete with her little finger tapping on her pursed lips) I guess that’s about it for now. The new-baby nerves are in full effect, so it feels good to just get some of this random stuff out of my head. I think the thing making me most nervous this time around is the logistics of it all – when will labor start, what will we do with D if it happens suddenly in the middle of the night (since my water didn’t break last time i don’t know what will happen if it does this time), will she be ok with me having to stay in the hospital a couple nights while she goes home with Daddy, will my mom be able to get up here in time to watch D while we go to the hospital if things do progress during the day again? See, stuff like that. But I know it’ll all work out in the end and we’ll end up a new family of 4.

Wow.

 

Posted on

Well this is no fun

So you know how I mentioned that I’ve developed carpal tunnel syndrome in my right arm these past couple weeks? Yeah, it can kiss my @$*!

Last night it got so bad I finally had to get out of bed at 4am and move onto one of the recliner ends of the couch in the living room. I thought a little elevation in my upper body would help the fluid stop pooling in my wrist/arm/hand. Ha! Apparently that was far too logical a thought to have for this body.

It was a little better for a few minutes, then the pain just started right up again. It was like someone was twisting a knife in the middle of my hand, with the stabbing pain shooting into my fingers and up to my elbow. So that was fun.

Finally, sometime shortly before I needed to get up this morning to take Ryan to work, I put the recliner all the way up so I was in a full sitting position with my legs out, arm still resting on pillows next to me, and that seemed to do the trick. Unfortunately I ended up getting about 3 seconds of sleep in those last 2+ hours of the night.

You’re really preparing me for those middle of the night feedings, aren’t you, kid?

Don’t get me wrong – I have thoroughly enjoyed this pregnancy again and really, REALLY want this baby to stay in there for at least another week (2 would be the best, 10 days would be better, but i’ll settle for a week so we’re back from peoria), but man oh man. This arm thing is miserable.

So if you see me walking around looking like a newborn-mother-zombie already, blame my arm. Or if you see me walking around looking totally well-rested but minus my right hand and forearm, you’ll know I finally had to take some drastic measures to get these last few precious weeks of sleep.

 

Posted on

The End

2 words. So simple, yet so final.

And my reality in just 1 week’s time.

As of next Wednesday, August 1, I will be unemployed. Yep, that’s right. J-O-B-less.

Unfortunately, I now know what it feels like to be fired. Well, technically terminated, but still. I’m out of a job.

Here’s the scoop…

I work at a hedge fund, and in a nutshell we’ve lost all of our outside investors. I say outside because I think all of the Principals have some of their own money invested, but you can’t really run a business with the employee base we’ve been carrying based solely on funds from the Principals. You need outside dough coming in, and that is one thing we’ve been severely lacking for a couple years now.

So they made the hard decision to close down our main investment funds and return all outside investors’ capital. In plain English, we went broke.

Now here’s the thing. This was no surprise. Those of you who know me well know that we’ve been living through this possible scenario for the past 4 years. Thankfully I survived every round of downsizing and layoffs until the end, so I do take that as a sign of my worth and standing as an employee. This was due to no fault of my own, and the Principals had nothing but praises to sing about my intelligence, work ethic, qualifications, etc., when the hammer finally dropped and I learned my final date. So that makes me feel a little better about everything.

Still, though, it means the end of a paycheck. The end of 401k contributions. The end of 100% employer-paid health insurance and medical benefits. The end of working in an awesome building with a full cafeteria staff who cooked us breakfast and lunch every day. The end of year-end bonuses. The end of working with people who have become good friends over the last almost 8 years. The end of my career?

That last one is probably the one that scares me most. This is the only “real” type of job I’ve held since graduating college – finance. And now, after a decade, I’m out. And I honestly don’t know if I’ll want to get back in when the time comes. I’ll be off at least the rest of this year, for who wants to hire a 6+ months pregnant chick who they know will be off for about 3 months with a baby shortly after she starts work? Yeah that’s what I thought too – no one.

Thankfully everyone is receiving severance packages, including continued health insurance coverage. And they did throw me a bone since I’m knocked up and extended my insurance coverage through the end of January instead of through October like most have been receiving.

I was really hoping to get just a couple more months out of the deal, since people are being let go in waves – July, August, September, and December, with a very small group staying for 1 year to get everything wound down. End of September would have been ideal. But such is not the case. In speaking with the Principals when I was given my final date they did say there’s always the possibility they could start something back up with a pool of their money, in which case I am high on their list of people they’d want back, but I’m not holding my breath on that whatsoever. I’m fairly certain that when I pull out of the garage on July 31, that will be the last time I see most everyone who’s left.

It’s sad. I’m sad. I foresaw myself working there for the rest of my career, however long that was to be. And for as much as it tore me up to send Della to daycare at 5 months old, I actually hate having to take her out now. She talks about her friends there constantly, she loves the teachers, and we love what they do for the kids. I hope I can keep some semblance of a social routine up for her once she’s at home with me full time. I’ve been saving their weekly lesson plans for the past couple weeks for ideas of what to do, and I’m planning on keeping their daily schedule in tact as much as I can at home, but I’m not going to lie. I’m nervous.

I have no idea how to be a stay at home mom anymore. What if she hates being home with me all day? What if I have no idea what to teach her or how to teach her what she would’ve been learning at daycare? What if she drives me crazy? What if I drive her crazy? What if we drive each other crazy and Ryan comes home to find 2 heaps on the floor, dead from all the crazy?

And then there’s the whole issue of a new baby coming in October. Oh yeah, that!! Someone, anyone, please tell me how to simultaneously (and successfully, mind you) take care of a 2 year old and a newborn all day alone. That is probably the part that makes me most frightened. I don’t know how to do it! The other day I was trying to remember what we did with Della and having her go to daycare when she was born, and then I remembered – she WAS the one who was born. DUH!! See, my mind is already partially gone. How am I going to survive the double kid whammy?

So you see, times they are a-changin’ at our house. Whether for better or worse, I have no idea, but it was out of my control. So it’s just happening. Fortunately, with the severance we’ll be ok financially for awhile. Thank god. And I am hoping to pick up a little freelance work between now and when the baby’s born to help tide us over too.

For those who don’t know, I’m an excellent proofreader/editor. Please check out that JEditing button at the very bottom of the page to be taken to my website for a little more info. And if you need any proofreading/editing services, EMAIL ME! I’m not just being egotistical when I say I’m good. I really am.

If I could do proofreading/editing work indefinitely after the baby’s born this fall, that would be ideal. I like it, I’m very good at it, I love finishing a project and knowing I made it correct, and I could do it from home. And if I were to get enough hours doing that, we could always send the kids to daycare once or twice a week so I could get large chunks of time in to work. Ahh, pipe dreams.

So, my friends, my days as a working mom are numbered. Like I said, I have no idea how I’ll be as a stay at home mom now, but I guess we’ll find out in a few days. Wish me luck!

 

 

 

Posted on

Ode to daycare

Oh, our daycare, we do love it so.

D loves to constantly learn and play and grow.

She whines a little when we arrive,

But after hand washing she’s off to thrive.

 

Her days are filled with art and song,

And sometimes she acts like she’d rather stay there all night long.

The teachers in all of her rooms so far

Have been absolutely wonderful – right now she’s a Shining Star.

 

But there’s just one thing about which I need to complain.

And no, it’s not that today’s filled with rain.

You see this thing keeps happening;

This thing which does not make my heart sing.

 

Every couple weeks the tell-tale signs begin –

Coughing, sneezing, snot rivers down to D’s chin.

Her excellent sleep patterns are soon replaced

By this screaming monster whom I’d like to punch in the face.

 

Not one night has gone by this week

Where we haven’t awoken to her midnight shriek.

“No, not again, go back to sleep!” I silently pray.

For I know this will lead to yet another horrible day.

 

A double ear infection, pink eye, and yes, she’s on meds.

Unfortunately they haven’t yet helped to calm her nighttime head.

I, too, now feel the beginning of this damn stupid cold,

And these aches, pains, and bloodshot eyes are getting quite old.

 

So dear daycare, you’re the best, but give me a break!

I don’t know how much more sickness our little family can take.

Your kids are all cute, I’m not gonna lie.

But I’m now pretty certain they can all shoot biological-warfare grade snot straight out of their eye.

 

 

Posted on

And then there was a toddler in our bed

There must have been something in her milk Saturday night, because D ended up sleeping in our bed for the 1st time ever. We do NOT make this a habit, obviously, when she can’t sleep, and usually she will eventually go back to sleep in her crib after waking in the middle of the night.

But for whatever reason she just wasn’t having it Saturday night. Try as we may, she wouldn’t sleep more than about 10 minutes at a stretch back in her crib.

Feel my pain? Here’s an approximate timeline of how our evening went:

8:00-9:00  Trying to get D to settle down, put toys away, and get snuggled in for night-night. R and I were engrossed in Season 1 of Downton Abbey on Netflix, so we wanted her to nestle into the blankets on the couch with R and fall asleep, like she often does. She was restless.

9:00  D finally conked out in his lap, so he carried her into her crib.

9:00-11:00 R and I become addicted to Downton Abbey. Well, I’m addicted. He may have just been humoring me by watching all these, but I think he actually kinda likes it too.

11:00ish  D starts crying, so after it becomes clear she’s not just sleep crying R goes in to rock her back to sleep. I hear little cries coming from her room off and on.

11:15  R comes back out to the living room carrying D, who is still not back to sleep. He puts her in the blankets with him on the couch again, but she instantly pops back up and now wants to play after seeing a puppy on the tv. Wrong.

11:15-11:30  I take her back in her room to rock with her turtle projecting stars and moons on the ceiling, and she eventually goes back to sleep.

11:30ish  I go to bed.

11:45-12:30  D wakes up 2-3 times, each time I rock her back to sleep. Those “sleeps” last no more than 10 minutes each. I’m getting really tired.

12:30  R goes in to try to get her to sleep and says he’ll just go lie on the couch with her. I know he’ll end up having to spend the rest of the night out there with her if he does, so I say just bring her into our bed. Little did I know that was the beginning of the end of any hope for a restful night.

12:30-6:30  D sleeps between me and R. And coughs in my face all night long. R bails at some point before morning to take up residence on the couch. Lucky. At 6:24 I awaken to a small arm moving back and forth over my forehead, then a finger in my eye. Nice wake up call.

So yeah, that wasn’t the most brilliant solution, and I now know why we haven’t tried it before.

D took 2 naps yesterday for the 1st time in months.

 

 

Posted on

I want to run

The changes are big, bigger than I even expected.

I’m left alone, and it makes me nervous.

Feeling crushingly overwhelmed, actually.

I don’t know this feeling, and I don’t particularly like it.

It’s not my friend. It doesn’t suit me.

I wear confidence and happiness much, much better.

It makes me want to run, straight into the arms of something to which I’m better suited and truly enjoy.

But if I ran, would I make it?

Could life as we know it survive, be ok, and even grow?

Or would we stumble, fall, and ultimately fail?

Do I have the courage to risk it?

I don’t think so. No, not yet.

Do I want to? Absolutely.

Someday.

But perhaps not now.

Perhaps now isn’t the time, but it’s out there.

Waiting for me someday. Someday hopefully soon.

Not hopefully – it will be. Soon.

I will make it so.

But not yet.

I want to run, but I must be smart.

Know what I have and be thankful I have it. For now.

An opportunity? I can’t see it as that yet, but maybe.

Don’t run.

But I still want to…

 

 

Posted on

Beware parking and Frontier

Hi guys! We’re back from vacation, and although I long achingly to be back in the Maui sun, it is nice to be done traveling. And it was funny – when we got home last night and walked in the house, it looked surprisingly bigger than I remembered. Odd, since we were only gone 10 days and our house is tiny.

I will have plenty of vaca recap posts complete with picture after picture after picture, but I need to get them all organized first. That in itself will take a few minutes, but I promise they will come.

First, though, I wanted to warn you about 2 things we encountered during this trip. One night last week we parked in a public lot during a dinner out in Lahaina, a little beach town on Maui, and our credit card number was ripped off by the outfit running the lot’s pay box. It was one of those lots where you park in a numbered space, then pay at the unmanned box/kiosk based on your space number. Well, instead of being charged the $5 for the night of parking, they tried to charge over $620 on our card online from Barcelona last weekend. Um, yeah right.

Fortunately our credit card company called to alert me to some possible fraudulent charges, and I promptly told them that no, that was not us trying to make those charges. What the f?! Thanks a lot, Tick Tock Ticket, or Tik Tok Ticket, however it was spelled. I couldn’t believe it. The other car in our party paid with cash for the parking, so we were the only lucky ones to get scammed. Jerks. Lesson? Pay with cash for little things, especially when you’re not dealing with an actual person for payment.

Second, Frontier Airlines officially lost my business yesterday. We had a 10:35 flight home from Denver to Milwaukee yesterday morning and were at the airport easily by 9. Plenty of time to check in and make our flight, right? Wrong! The check in line was wrapped all the way through the maze of guides and out into the middle of the ticketing area of the airport, and since D was traveling as a lap infant we weren’t able to check in online ahead of time to bypass the line. Well crap. We figured we’d have no issue, though, seeing as we were plenty early and things seemed to be moving fairly quickly.

However, when we finally made it up to the counter and tried to check our 3 small bags as we had on every other leg of this journey, the snotty Frontier agent refused to allow us to check in for our flight, saying we were within the 45 minute barrier when they close the flight. Um, what?!? You idiots made us wait in line for over an hour, with not one agent walking through notifying people that it was getting close to the cut-off time to check in for the earlier flights, like every other airline I’ve ever flown on does. You know what I’m talking about – the agent going through everyone in line asking if anyone’s on the next closest flight, and getting them up to the front to get checked in to make sure they’re on it. Apparently Frontier doesn’t believe in that system and would rather fly their planes half-empty instead.

So not only did she not allow us to check in for our morning flight, she wouldn’t even check availability on other airlines with similar or even close departure times. She dismissed that request with a quick, “No, there’s nothing else available.” Uh, I’m sure there is, but thanks anyway for taking those 4 extra seconds to check (turns out there were 2 other flights on different airlines with departure times close to ours). Nor would she take the time to see what our options were the following morning. Again, “No, nothing,” with an obvious lack of actually pulling anything up on her computer. So we were placed on standby for the 3:08 flight yesterday afternoon, with the chance of being continually rolled over on standby until the first available confirmed seats on the 8:51pm flight on January 4. What?! No.

Not only did we not want to spend 2 more days in Denver, but the Rose Bowl in which the Badgers were playing was on yesterday afternoon at 4pm CST! If we had to miss that because of Frontier’s beyond terrible ticketing agent, I was ready to throat punch someone. Ok, so we’re on standby, now what to do with our bags? One of Frontier’s saving graces has always been their policy of not charging you the extra $20 to check carry-on sized bags. Yeah, well, this girl obviously didn’t abide by that policy. She was going to charge us $60 for our 3 bags instead of the $20 we’d been charged by Frontier on our first flight to begin this vacation, since 2 of the suitcases were easily carry-on sized. Whatever. So we only checked 1 and the car seat through for free.

This is already making me mad again just thinking about, so I’ll try to make this long story short. After our disastrous encounter with the girl at the ticketing counter, we had to go through security 3 times since we forgot about things in our bags that were larger than the TSA approved sizes for liquids and gels. As we’d checked everything through the whole time up until that point, we hadn’t had to worry about that. Awesome. 1 time they made R pay to check his bag, but when I went back the 3rd time to check D’s, the woman was much more understanding and did not charge me to check the carry on. Um, how about some consistency, Frontier?

Thank god we were 2 of the 3 people who made it on that 3:08 flight on standby (D doesn’t count for a seat since she was a lap infant), and we made it home around 6:30 last night. Only 5 hours later than originally planned. At least Frontier does have the in-flight TVs so we could watch most of the Rose Bowl on the plane. We missed the very end on the drive home but tuned in on the radio, just in time to hear us lose. Ugh. Oh well, at least we were miserable at home instead of still stuck in Colorado.

So there you have it – beware of shady little unmanned parking boxes and Frontier Airlines’ ridiculously terrible customer service. You’d better believe I am filing a complaint on their website. We at least deserve our $20 back for having to pay to check R’s carry on, something for which we have never been charged until yesterday morning. What made me most irate about the whole fiasco was the ticketing agent’s attitude – she kept huffing and puffing and putting her head down on the counter in exasperation at how long the line was. Huh? That’s not our fault. Just do your job and get us on our flight! She obviously failed.

1 highlight of being stuck in the Denver airport for 5 extra hours yesterday? D was an absolute dream of a traveler, even taking an almost 2 hour nap while we waited.