We're Going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo

We are going to the zoo tomorrow and I have had the refrain in my head "Mama's taking us to the zoo tomorrow and we can stay all day!" Bouncy song and the lyrics fit. We've been so broke we haven't gotten out much. My mom keeps telling Aaron and me to take advantage of her being here to kid-sit and go do something, but we haven't been able to.

So tomorrow will be a family outing that should be fun for the kiddo. She is exercising her "No!" a lot these even with thing she enjoys so sometimes it's hard to tell. Though my mom's been here a week and tended to Olivia, she won't let my mom pick her up or change her. I'd have thought that she'd have warmed up by now, but not yet. Stinker.

I am determined that in the next few days Aaron and I will go see a movie, just us two. And maybe, if the stars align, I will sneak off for a long overdue haircut. If I don't look like a wild woman from some Borneo jungle perhaps I will feel more like rejoining the grid.

The Petrie Dish Called Home

We've all been sick the last week or so. The place is awash in balled-up kleenex and Ny-Quil. I think Olivia picked up the initial cold from play group and we've all been swapping it around. My mom is visiting from CT and has been on light nurse duty since she got here: cooking meals and handing out kleenex and tea.

Aaron passed his PMP certification exam the weekend before last and has already seen an increase in calls from recruiters, so fingers and toes crossed that the precarious financial situation will soon be behind us. We both lost about 10lbs of worry when he passed; I don't think either of us knew how stressful the worry was until it was gone. I had two job interviews last week -- one rude, one good, and haven't heard back about either. Oh well, onward.

Olivia may be only 17 months, but she is already a two year-old in some ways. The last few days she protests wearing any kind of clothes or shoes. Trying to get out the door involves a meltdown of some kind so you have to allow an extra 10 minutes for tears and tantrums. If it were warmer I might just allow her out in a diaper, but it's been unseasonably cold and since she's sick we have to go through the dressing tantrum.

Then, around dinner time, Olivia goes through her "seek-and-destroy" phase: about an hour long period where she is crabby and leaves a path of destruction in each room. Usually you can jolly her out of a bad mood, but not during seek-and-destroy; the only tools in the arsenal that seem to work are a bottle of milk and a dance to a happy tune.

On the plus side, with having my mom here and being sick I have been able to read actual books rather than periodicals. It's been nice brain food. Hard to remember that it can't subsist on junk food anymore than any other part.

Rise And Fall

I've gone from trying to get back to my old self to trying to just become someone I can live with. I don't think the old me is there any more. I don't think I am fated to remain this brittle has-been either, but neither do I want to be around her. Fortunately I live with a 17-month old elf who doesn't know her mom is seemingly unemployable. She's just the lady who dances with her on the patio.

I don't know how to position myself in this market, I don't know how to sell myself anymore and I am shocked at the disdain that HR is met with by hiring managers. Whatever confidence I bolstered myself with is gone. My hat is off to actors everywhere who audition week after week and keep at it. If I were younger and in this situation I'd have a couple more kids and move off the grid entirely. Cue banjo music and pictures of chickens and cows.

Deep Cleansing Breath

My friend Maurine has been trying to lead me in meditations to try to diperse the stress that is causing my shoulders to hover around my ears. She has her own stress and figured we could both get some good from reminding ourselves that this, too, shall pass. I say "trying" because getting 10 minutes of non-distracted time for the two of us to have a phone call has being something of high comedy: cue barking dogs, crying babies and ringing doorbells.

For me the stress root is something that Aaron and I have been struggling with for a while: how should one act when people around you (important people like bosses) are acting without integrity? On one hand you don't want to become one of their prey but neither do you want to become like them -- scared, self-serving, irrational. So right now it seems as though it's a choice between feeling like a chump or not being able to provide for your family. Deep breath.

We are watching a friend of a friend's dog for a week and, after one day, I already want to give it back. It's an elderly toy poodle, half-blind and domineering. It's an extra hassle during a week where I am not in a generous mood, with it's peeing on the carpet and chasing my dog into corners. Sadie looks up at me with her big brown eyes and makes a chuffing noise as if to say "Who needs this?" Breathe.

As I sit at the desk writing Olivia has taken to standing on a file box and leaping onto my back like a baby chimp, then swinging down and up on the box and my back again. (And I wonder why I have back spasms?) After repeatedly pulling my hair in the process, I stuck her in her playyard-- an affront she is not bearing well as the neighbors can attest. Deep breath.

And so it goes, breathe in, breathe out.

Long Time No Post

It was a bit hectic the past week. We drove to San Diego for Aaron's work and stopped off to visit some friends in the LA area on the way. It was really healing to be around old friends we both realized. It's a lot of pressure to put on a marriage to have a spouse fill all the roles: friend, provider, entertainer, etc.

We hadn't been to San Diego together since before we were married. Olivia and I hung out and explored during the day and then would pick up Aaron at the Mexican border each night. Olivia is less inclined to want to stay in the car these days so the trip overall was taxing as she fretted at being constrained. Once out of the car seat she was her happy self.

Yesterday, when we returned to Alameda, we went up to Glen Ellen to visit my friend Maurine. We went to a nearby outdoor pool where Olivia had a blast in the kiddie pool. She could enter and exit it herself so that was endless fun and when she got sticky from a Sno-Cone, back into the pool.

Feeling a bit adrift in Alameda. Olivia has been waking up around 4 each morning and I haven't been going back to sleep afterward. Too much time in my own head to worry and turn things over. By 4 in the afternoon I am out of patience and energy and there's another 3 hours or so before Olivia goes to bed. Those hours are frustrating for both of us and I wish I contained my temper more. I am having back spasm again from picking her up which doesn't help matters.

We started going to a play group a couple times a week at the Veteran's Center. It's a big room with a wood floor and tons of toys scattered about. The kids just have a ball running around and the parents sit around the room's perimeter checking their Blackberries. When we return home Olivia crashes hard. Reminds me of how the Dog Whisperer always says "exercise, discipline, affection -- in that order." There's wisdom in that.