My Literal Child

Last night at dinner Zoë had her back to my husband and was looking at me while I watched him stick a sharp knife in his mouth to pick his teeth. Some maternal instinct in me reacted by saying "Take that out of your mouth, please." Zoë then asked me what he had in his mouth and I replied "his finger."
"No he didn't! Daddy why did you put the knife in your mouth!?" Zoë accused -- just then turning to face him. I looked across the table at my husband who was also astonished.
"Zoë do you have eyes in the back of your head? " I laughed.
Zoë then immediately reached up with both hands and felt the back of her head. She was feeling for another set of eyes, of course. "No, Mommy, I do not have eyes back there", she replied sounds quite annoyed. "I only have eyes here -- that is the way I was made!"
My husband and I nearly died of laughter as I explained to Zoë that it was only a joke.
"It was a very bad joke," she scolded with brows furrowed and hands on hips.

The New Boss

The new boss started today. So far...just not sure. Tried to be a friendly by making sure he had lunch plans (unlike my first day!), but he was kind of awkward about the whole thing. I don't know -- maybe I am reading too much into it. I have been known to do that. My husband accuses me of doing it regularly. In any case, I am bent on giving the guy a chance because I really, really want this job to work out.

Today is school picture day for Zoë. She let me blow-dry her hair this morning for the occasion. Wonder if it lasted? Hopefully, they are smart and schedule the pictures in the morning -- before the kids get out to the playground or have lunch. Last year's pix were cute so I am hopeful. Not that I am ever at a loss for recent pictures. I'm not sure, but I think I can practically chronicle every week of her life to-date with photos. Can you tell I just have the one kid?

Limited Sympathies

"Limited Sympathies" seemed to be the phrase of the weekend. I had limited sympathies for my husband who went to work despite being sick and did not leave early or go to the doctor as he said he would. In fact, I was actually angry at him for being sick and not taking care of himself because it led inevitably to him spending most of Sunday in bed. Sunday is our only day of the week that we have together and I resent when something gets in the way of that.

Limited sympathies were had for Zoë who could not behave well enough to get the balloon Grandma promised if she was good while we were super market shopping.

Limited sympathies were also had for my aunt who came to have Passover with us on Saturday night. The reasons are numerous and rather not worth going into.

Limited sympathies were also had for my aunt's friend who refuses to pay someone to assist her long-time, live-in (20 years) boyfriend who recently had a stroke. Instead, she is doing everything for him herself rather than spend the money on a home health aid or the like. Apparently, he does not have the money himself and she will not use her own money. They have been together for over 20 years and she can't spend some of her money on him? Believe me, I know it is expensive and difficult to hire someone like a home health aid, but based on my experience with my husband's parents I can see that it is worth it. Not only for the person in need of aid, but for the family who would normally have to give all the aid themselves on top of whatever other full-time responsibilities they already have.

Lastly, limited sympathies are had for the members of "Word of Mouth", the group of women writers who sent a open letter to Oprah Winfrey imploring her to re-instate recommending current authors in her bookclub. "The readers need you," the letter said. In truth, the writers need you -- to make their books bestsellers. Author Jennifer Weiner has plenty to say on this in her great blog Snarkspot -- of which I am a regular reader.

Anwar, the tribe has spoken

I was so pleased by the outcome of yesterday's American Idol results show. I am a die-hard Idol watcher and there is something I haven't liked about Anwar from the start. To be sure, the man can sing, but there is something disingenuous about him. I can't quite put my finger on it. His singing always left me cold and I am glad I won't have to watch him anymore. I'm sure he has a bright future in the music world, but doubtfully as a pop star. He's too much of a goody-two-shoes.

Now American Idol is down to the final 6. I love that show and am going to be so sad when it is over for another season. Pathetic as it sounds, I really look forward to it every week. There's just not that much else out there that I really enjoy watching these days.

Speaking of American Idol, can you believe Ryan Seacrest got a star on the Walk of Fame??? Is he really that famous? I'm not so sure we're going to remember his name once Idol is cancelled. But what do I know?

Spoiled?

After work yesterday I took my daughter for a haircut. I had scheduled the haircut for 5:30pm because that was usually the earliest I could manage to get there. My group was cleared out by 4:30 yesterday so I left myself around 4:45. Zoë and I arrived at Sharkey's Cuts for Kids by 5:05pm and there was about 4 kids already there waiting to for their turn so no chance of getting in early. Conveniently there is a Stride Rite next door to Sharkey's so I decided to take Zoë there for new shoes while we waited. I wanted to get here some sandals, but it turns out that is was too early and most of the sandals were not in yet. I found this odd since you can't even find a long sleeve shirt at Baby Gap these days -- summer merchandise is all that is available. After the disappointment of not being able to get a haircut right away and having to explain at least 4 times that we were coming back, but we had to wait our turn, I could tell that my choices were buy the kid some shoes or face major crying/tantrum episode and possibly missing the haircut altogether -- a hair cut she really needed. Sigh. So I bought her some cheap sneakers. She now has 3 pairs of sneakers. If they had had some flip-flops I would have done that, but $35.00 sneakers was the best/cheapest I could do. The rest of the evening proceeded crying-free and Zoeë wasn't;t even fazed by the fact that another little girl was already in the Barbie Jeep so she had to sit in the tractor for her haircut. The haircut came out very cute, by the way. Even so, I was a little uneasy about the sneaker purchase.

Then after Zoë went to bed last night I happened to be flipping through the latest issue of Reader's Digest (which they are still sending me despite the fact that I am no longer an employee) and came across an article about saying no to your children, etc. It was a good article surprisingly and I immediately thought of the earlier sneaker incident. Was I spoiling my child by buying her new sneakers that she did not need just to prevent her from getting upset? I largely did it for my own peace, I know. At the same time I didn't buy her any of the 7 or 8 toys she played with that they have on display at Sharkey's and she didn't ask. She rarely asks me for anything. Had she asked for a toy I would definitely have said no. And I know she would have been OK with that. She might have asked "why?" a few times and that would have been it. But there is no pattern of her getting a toy when we go for a haircut. When we go to the shoe store she always leaves with new shoes on her feet. I don't want to raise a spoiled child and I'm not sure I did the right thing in regards to buying the sneakers. What's done is done now, but it is food for thought. That is probably the first RD article to ever make me think so much. Weird, huh?

Applying make-up

OK, amittedly I know it is not a good idea, but I have done it too -- I have applied make-up while driving. It is in fact a very bad idea. Especially for the woman in front of me this morning. She was so busy putting on mascara and not paying attention to the road that she ended up all the way over on the left of the rather narrow street we were on. The oncoming car had to beep repeatedly before she realized that he was beeping at her because she was headed right into his car. The light at the end of the street is a long one and it had just turned red when she arrived at the intersection. Rather than wait and use the pause to complete her make-up (a perfect opportunity) she nosed her way out into the intersection until she finally went ahead and made a left on red. I guess she assumed that the light was optional for her. I waited for the light to turn green before turning left and was quite pleased to see her about a hundred yards up pulled over by one of Fairfield's finest. See, there is justice in this world.

The First Monday

My first Monday at my new job and it wasn't too bad. I made a real effort to talk to everyone in our group today and that seemed to help defrost the environment. I am sure I will suffer their stand-offish-ness for awhile yet. The joy of the new and much abbreviated commute still overrides much of the pains of starting a new job.

I must have looked back on that picture of Zo&eul; at the beach about 10 times today. She looks so sunny and happy. Sometimes I still can't quite believe a kid as wonderful as she is really my kid. Just lucky I guess. After dinner tonight we took Zoë out to her favorite ice cream place which she lovingly refers to as "Garbage Cow." The actual name is "Sunny Daes" however, in front of the store there is a life-size cow next to an enormous garbage can -- thus it became known as "Garbage Cow." Maybe you had to be there...

Sunday Night Blues

What a weekend! Spring has sprung and much fun was had. This photo sums it up nicely, I think:


By the time we got her back to the car she was soaking wet and covered in sand. I call that an excellent day at the beach. Funny thing is we were only there for about an hour.

New Job: Day 2

Its hard to say if day 2 was better or worse than day 1. On the positive side, I did finally get my security pass so I was able to get some lunch and I had fewer meetings which helped reduce the headache factor. On the negative side, I didn't really know what I was supposed to be doing so I just did a bunch of research on the net on random topics that had come up throughout the day before. Also, no one was particularly friendly -- again. No one was even a little bit friendly. Sigh. What can I really expect? I guess they are not going to throw me a party and give me a necklace like they did when I left my old job. Too bad.

The thing that really made yesterday suck was arriving home to see my husband's car in the driveway. Just seeing his car there and I knew something really bad had happened because only catastrophe would make him leave work early. I had Zoë with me so at least I knew she was alright. My first thought was that someone had died -- likely one of Rob's parents. Luckily it wasn't as drastic as that. Just 2 inches of water in our basement. Seems the old hot water heater decided it was time for retirement. Nothing like a $750 surprise. Another sigh. With a little luck and help from the fine people at Home Depot, it will all be fixed by tonight. I hope so because I really don't want to have to go another day without a shower.

I came to a startling realization last night. In the last 2 months we have moved Zoë to her "big girl" bed, completed potty training -- thus eliminating the need for diapers, stopped using the baby sized "potty", and stopped using the booster seat at the table. Its official, Zoë is not a baby anymore. Wow.

New job: Day 1

The first day was mostly a blur of meetings. Actual meetings and meeting people. I did my best to remember names. I think I got all the names of the people in my group at least.

The worst part was that I had to eat raisinettes for lunch because no one offered to have lunch with me and I had no security pass for the building so I couldn't come and go without someone with a pass. Not an overly friendly bunch, but I am trying to be understanding. I am taking over for someone who was here for a long time and I am senior to most of them. Even so, it would have been nice for someone to offer to go to lunch with me -- especially my boss. Oh well.

The best part of the day was certainly the commute. Arriving at Zoë's daycare 2 minutes after getting into my car was incredibly strange, but in a good way. I experienced that same strange feeling when I arrived at work this morning a mere 20 minutes after I left my house.

I am definitely going to have to work out a new morning routine. Not sure yet what time I want to arrive here and how I am going to work in working out. I think I will try walking in the mornings and aiming to get here by 8:30. Once winter comes, I will have to make other arrangements, but for now I can save a little money on the gym membership. Most of the team seem to come in at 8 and leave by 4:30 so that is a tempting schedule too. I'd rather not nail it down at all if I can help it. We'll see.

OK, must get back to simulating work now. Not sure at all what I am supposed to be doing so I am just doing what I can to figure things out.