Every Little Wonder

I know I’m super lucky to be able to escape the cubicle and make good money and spend time with my crazy adorable baby toddler. But since moving to Sacramento (and in with my parents) and starting to work from home full-time, I have…accomplished absolutely nothing. I think I figured that working from home would give me even more delicious time to waste away online, but my google reader situation is out of control (oh, three months behind or so), I go weeks without remembering what a twitter is, and I don’t even know where to start blogging again.

Spending less time online would be great if I were at least doing something productive or fun or…anything. Anything at all. The sad truth is that working from home has made my crazy ADD magpie-esque level of time-management skills really, really obvious. I feel a bit like I’m drowning all the time despite the fact that I am doing absolutely nothing.

Sure, it’s hard to get things done living out of a small room in my parent’s house with all my belongings packed away in storage. And yeah, it’s obviously hard to be productive with a toddler—and not just any toddler but one who spends 90% of the day bouncing off the walls like he’s just snorted a few lines of coke in the bathroom while I wasn’t looking. (‘drank a bottle of coke’ would probably have been a more appropriate analogy, I know, but we’re two hours past time and he won’t sit still for longer than two seconds and oh my goodness, child, why won’t you just lay down already ). But excuses aside, my to-do list is multiplying daily and I’m not even attempting to pretend to make a dent in it.

I know I need a babysitter/nanny/mother’s helper/whatever, but that’s not really going to help until I get some ADD meds that actually work. Paying someone to watch my kid so I can squirrel away hours looking at pinterest and watching whatever Vin Diesel movie is available OnDemand is probably not the smartest use of my money.

Nothing is happening. I swear. Days are just blurring together, each one the same as the last. Work, sleep (kinda, sometimes, if I’m lucky), eat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Big changes are on the way, but…just not quite yet. Right now? I’m stuck in a holding pattern, I guess. Just waiting, waiting, waiting.

Ezra has an ear infection and a face full of snot, and I’m starting to cough right as Cris is getting over his bronchitis. The time change has thrown everything off and I’m feeling the familiar winter blues starting to creep in slowly, and someone said it’s almost Christmas!, and wait, what have I done with this year? Where did it go?

On the drive home last night, a car swerved into my lane with no warning, right in front of me as I was going 80mph. I had to slam on the brakes and swerve into the shoulder. We were fine, THANK GOD, but… it was close! So close. And so scary. I had to call Cris to talk me down because all I wanted to do was pull over on the side of the road and have a good cry.

I’m just tired. Tired isn’t even the right word. I’m exhausted. In my bones, straight down to the bone marrow. I keep seeing glimpses of this perfect life we’re both working towards, but… it’s just out of reach. For now. And the current endless drudgery of crappy jobs and terrible/terrifying commutes and barely getting to spend any time together as a family… it’s no good. It’s stupid. There’s no room to breathe.

So hey, turns out I have ADD. Over the past few weeks, a random confluence of in-person conversations, news articles, and internet stumbling-around let to me thinking there’s a chance I have something that I previously only associated with hyperactive 12-year-old boys. So I scheduled an appointment with one of them psychologist people.

After talking to the doctor a bit, she said she was going to ask me a series of questions and I had to answer with yes or no only—no maybes allowed. I thought it was going to be hard. I’m an indecisive waffler. Having to answer a yes/no question is like a form of torture for me. My brain goes crazy running though a million different hypothetical situations and well what if this and but what about that…until I end up passed out and drooling on the floor.

And then she started asking the questions.

Yes. Yes. YES.

Every single question she asked got an immediate and emphatic yes from me. No waffling required. She put the questionnaire away and gave a little chuckle: Well, that seems pretty clear-cut!

So…yeah. ADD. I’m trying to wrap my mind around this. I don’t want to make a big deal of something that is certainly Not A Big Deal, but… does this mean I’m not just the laziest person in the world? The worst procrastinator ever? The biggest underachiever in the history of the forever? Is it possible that I can become the kind of person who… does things? Someone who actually Gets Shit Done? And if so… AM I STILL ME?!?!!!? WHO AM I???

It’s all making me feel vaguely conflicted and unsettled.

It’s all making me need a nap.

What with the vagaries of our schedules being what they are—being a three-person, two-job, one-car household with responsibilities all over the greater Bay Area ain’t easy!— we sometimes end up with a night like last night, where I take the bus home after work, and Cris and the baby don’t end up getting home until around 10. Which means a whole, uninterrupted evening for myself. Let me say that again: a whole, uninterrupted evening for myself.

As an avowed introvert, I must admit that these nights are sometimes the only thing keeping me on the happy side of “about to go insane and run down the streets naked pulling out my hair and screaming about the leprechauns.”

I usually try to spend those evenings doing laundry or cleaning or at least something vaguely productive. But last night? Well, last night:

Yeah, it was that kinda night. But the ramen was the 99 cent version, NOT the 33 version JUST SO YOU KNOW. I have some class.

I would apologize for the super crappy pictures, but, hey. Being home alone also means never having to say you’re sorry.

Last week, we took a few days off work in celebration of my birthdayyyyy. I turned 27 on the 27th. I think that means this year is going to be completely awesome, right? Of course.

My birthday usually involves me begging Cris to take me to some ridiculously expensive restaurant so I can play dress up and get tipsy and pretend to be a Real Grown Up for the night. But it turns out that really being a grown up means not spending $300 on one dinner because there are things like car payments and diapers and saving money for a wedding to worry about. Boo.

Instead, I came across this list of birthday freebies and signed up for as many as I could. And then we spent my birthday driving all over the east bay and getting tons of free, gross food. It was pretty fantastic.

Breakfast: chocolate chip pancakes @ IHOP

Chili dog @ Weinerschnitzel (this went straight to Cris, of course. just looking at it make me kinda queasy)

tacos @ Rubio’s

ice cream @ baskin robbins

burger @ red robin

and, just for kicks, a free little makeup kit from sephora

I was a little mortified at the thought of going somewhere and only ordering something free and nothing else, but Cris bravely forged ahead for my sake and I bashfully hid behind him and tipped well. We at like kings gluttonous pigs. Saldy, our tummies could only take so much and we skipped out on the the free ice cream from Coldstone, the free entree at Chevy’s, and the free steak dinner at Black Angus.

The rest of our mini-break was spent either bumming around my mom’s house (and letting her watch Ezra so we could go see a movie—Inception? Completely awesome, in case you were wondering) or bumming around our home. I don’t think I ever pictured spending my 27th birthday this way, but I guess I’m a total old lady now because it was pretty much perfect.

Okay, I know there’s nothing more boring than a blog post apologizing for not blogging lately. As if the internet has collectively held its breath in anticipation of my return. So, I’ll skip that part. Instead, I’ll just say that my ability to deal with more than one thing at a time—with even a modicum of grace or dignity—is gone. I can handle a teething, cranky, sleepless baby. I can handle a bunch of new responsibilities at work. I can handle a wretched, soul-sucking commute every day. I could handle only getting a few hours of sleep a night, or looming deadlines on new projects, or keeping the living room from looking like a war zone, or feeling hungry all the time from this completely ineffective diet. I can handle not having any time to myself to just breathe. I could deal with any of these just fine, I swear!

But…all of them?

Well, suddenly I am a frazzled, incoherent mess. Just brushing my teeth in the morning seems like an insurmountable task. And dinner tonight? Um, what about this moldy carrot I found under the counter?

Cris had some errands to get done this morning and he took the baby with him so I could just relax at home. The minute he left, I started compiling a list in my head of all the things I needed to get done in these few hours: dishes, laundry, vacuuming, finishing client’s business cards, editing photos, taking the chipped nail polish of my nails, scooping the litter box, watering the plants, putting away all the toys, reorganizing the pantry, et cetera, et cetera, et freaking cetera.

So I decided to go back to bed for three hours, and then eat some pizza and watch trashy tv.

Things are going to be okay.

A better writer could turn this into an awesomely hilarious post, but the truth is I can barely even think about it for more than a couple seconds without kinda wanting to die. But I have to write it here for posterity’s sake at the very least because one day, many years from now, Ezra is going to wonder why his mom is completely insane and I’m going to point back to the night I found a dead body in my living room, strewn about all Dexter-style. Okay, it was a bird body. But still. I’m getting ahead of myself.

In an effort to ignore battle the constant stench of cat poo filling our apartment, we decided to move the litter box to the balcony and just leave the sliding glass door open all the time. The cats are beyond thrilled with this arrangement because it means constant outside access, and in their little kitty brains, constant outside access = 100% win. If the food and the so-fun-to-annoy Humans weren’t inside, they would happily sit on the balcony forever and ever.

Ollie—the younger, insaner more energetic kitty—has become completely obsessed with birds. He sits for hours, precariously perched in attack mode on the edge of the balcony, watching the birds chirp and flit about on the nearby trees.

We thought it was cute.

Until last Friday.

On Friday, we came home from a late dinner and put the baby to bed and got all jammied up and were ready to start a movie. We walked into the dim living room with stuff scattered all over the floor and I though gee, our living room is so messy. And then I thought wait, I just cleaned it the morning… So I looked a little closer and then turn to Cris to ask “What is that?”
What?
That stuff!
Oh, huh.
Is it-…
I think it’s a plant? The cats must’ve brought one in here!
No, wait, is that—
Ohhhhh shittttttt.
Is that… No. No.
Ohhh shittttttt.
Oh my god. Please tell me that’s not a bird. No. No no no no no.

We slowwwwwly turn on the light. We gasp in horror at the scene in
front of us. Bird feathers. Everywhere. Smears of blood all over the carpet. A dead bird, right next to the couch. Wait! Correction: half of a dead bird. A leg thrown near the recliner. Guts and innards casually
tossed about. It was brutal.

I then proceeded to calmly and gracefully clean the mess up.

Ha! Kidding! I then proceeded to whimper like a little girl and hide under the blankets on the bed while facebooking about the incident and occasionally peeking out to yell at ask Cris if he was done cleaning it all up yet.

After a night and morning full of soap and ammonia and baking soda and scrubby brushes and vacuums and whatnot, I think we’ve got the living room back to a non-revolting state, but I was thisclose to giving up and moving back in with my parents.

[I told this story to a friend, and she was all “Oh, yeah, my dumb cat brings me dead birds all the time”, all like hey, whatever about it. Am I just the biggest baby ever?]

[The best part? The other half of the dead bird was never recovered. I am so afraid of it popping out and attacking me when I least expect it.]

Things are slowly settling into a new kind of normal around here.Despite the occasional bout of nearly homicidal road rage, the commute is getting more bearable. Or less unbearable, depending on how you look at it. I’m looking for a commute buddy to make the daily drive less expensive and painful and I’m adjusting my hours to try to beat traffic a little bit. We’ll see how it goes, but at least it’s going.

And on the wildly positive side, getting home in time for us to both spend a couple hours with our pweshus widdle baby before putting him to bed at night is totally wonderful. We’re actually able to come home and, like, do stuff. Like cooking (yum!) or cleaning (ha!) or crawling around the floor chasing Ezra or even, gasp!, going out somewhere! It makes me feel all wild and heady and free.

And Ezra? Well, in addition to learning to crawl, he went and sprouted two delightfully chompy little teeth at he same time last week. Which may have contributed to the very sleepy and grumpy week for everyone involved. You know, maybe.

• I really wish I could just spend all day with him napping in my arms.
• I need to take more pictures. I took so many while I was on maternity leave, but since I’ve been at work, I’m lucky if I remember to snap a few shots with my iphone before we put the little monkey to bed. He is growing so quickly and time is passing so unbelievably fast.
• Over the weekend, I resolved to finally get serious about eating better. So far today, I’ve had: one scone, one cheese danish, one berry muffin. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will get serious. For real, this time.
• I have a cold. Again. I guess almost a year of not being to sleep through the night can kinda wear down a person’s immune system, huh?
• Ezra is sitting. Like, full on-his-own, all-by-himself sitting. We’re all terribly proud, and his ridiculously, adorably loud squeeeaaaals of delight seem to indicate that he’s pretty thrilled with himself too.
• SQUEALS. For real. This kid is loud and he loves his yelling. When he’s happy—which is most of the time, thankfully!—it’s the cutest thing ever. When he’s angry or upset or OMG GIVE ME MY BOTTLE NOW WOMAN NOW it’s slightly less cute.
• I can not comfortably cosleep and down a bottle of nyquil. Tonight is not going to be too awesome, I’m sensing.

I have so much to do, but, woe!, I seem to have come down with a cold. Which I caught from my baby. Sick baby + sick mama = NO FUN. The past few nights, Ezra has decided to remind us that he’s not feeling too great by waking up every couple hours and SCREAMING SO LOUD OMG SO LOUD. The only thing that seems to console him is to sit him on my lap and gently rock him for hours as he stares off into the distance, all pitiful and morose and snot-filled. Sleep? What is this ‘sleep’ you speak of?

I had scheduled Monday and Tuesday off of work so that I could enjoy some time with Cris and Ezra during Cris’s last week of family leave, but spending the whole time on the couch or in bed whining about miserable I felt and worrying about the baby was not exactly what I had in mind.

And now, I’m back at work with a ton of stuff to do and an inability to concentrate on anything for more than two seconds because MY NOSE! MY HEAD! MY THROAT! OMG MISERY! HEY LOOK TWITTER! Plus, my annual review is tomorrow morning. AWESOME.

Having a baby and a full-time job is taxing enough for me (really, how do so many people do this? I am so weak!), but add a (relatively mild) cold to the mix, and I’m just done. I need a margarita and a bottle of nyquil, stat.

Ezra has been such a wonderfully happy ball of cuteness lately that I’m starting to wonder why I didn’t have babies sooner and when I can have 20 more. He smiles and coos and babbles and giggles and sticks out his tongue and blows raspberries all over the place. He loves people. He loves the funny sounds they make. He loves poking and grabbing and smooshing their faces. He loves being the center of attention. He gets upset when we stop looking at him and yells out to remind us that he’s still there, still being cute. He loves tummytime and bathtime and storytime. He hates naptime. He loves Dance Party time with dada, and he’s already learned mama has no idea how to dance. He’s mesmerized by his feet, the kitties, anything that lights up. He twists his whole body around to stare at the tv whenever it’s on, even though mama says no tv, not even The Daily Show. When he’s sleepy and you put your hand close to rub his head, he grabs on to your entire arm and pulls it across his tiny body and buries his face in your palm and only then will he close his eyes. I think it’s safe to say I’m pretty in love with this little guy.

Cris has been taking the last half of his paid family leave to spend some quality time with the baby and I’m so jealous. I was a little worried that I would come from work every day to a happy baby and a sparkling clean apartment and a delicious homemade meal on the stove, but my worries were completely unfounded. As nice as it would be to have that for these three weeks, I’m more grateful that Cris is just as cheerfully unproductive as I was on my maternity leave. At least he now understands how hard it is to get anything with the baby around, even though he does nothing but smile and eat and poop and cry.

I was able to work from yesterday and sit on the couch in my jammies with my laptop in front of me and Cris and the baby next to me. This is approximately 100000000000 times better than being in a cubicle. Hopefully I can find a way to make this an everyday thing sometime before Ezra’s 18th birthday. I’m already getting so sad about all the moments I’m missing with him.

My mom came over yesterday to spend the day with me and Ezra (well, okay, mostly just Ezra if we’re being honest. But she she’s stuck with me until she can finally convince me to just drop him off at her house for weeks at a time and, I don’t know, run off to Vegas or something). After a day of wandering around town, getting drinks at Starbucks, and spending way too much money at Target, she agreed to spend the night so that Cris and I could get some much-needed Time Away.

Cris got home from work at a relatively decent hour and we excitedly got ready to go out on our Night of Freedom! What are we going to do?! I don’t know! I don’t care! SO MUCH POSSIBILITY! We were out the door in record time, barely remembering to even say bye to to the baby. We ran to the car, jumped in, and then… huh. So, uh… what are we gonna do?

After some remarkable displays of indecision, we settled on dinner at a little pub/restaurant place we’d had our eye on for while. But a large plate of fries, some sliders, and one whole bloody mary later, and we were right back where we started. It was only 9:00 and we couldn’t thing of a single to do besides go home and crawl in bed. Determined to not be the most boring people in the universe, we drove around the island for another hour, halfheartedly thinking of something we could do. But we were tired, sad people and eventually just gave up and went home, way before curfew time.

But not before stopping to pick up an entire apple pie. Of course.

I feel like I’m caught in a holding pattern. Most nights, we get home with just enough time to put the baby to bed. Then we make a quick dinner, eat—usually while watching tv, of course—and go to sleep. Work, baby, sleep. Work, baby, sleep. It’s not exactly happyfuntimes and I’m just waiting for something to give…a new job, a winning lottery ticket, something. I’m not exactly sure what, but man. This just can’t be the new normal, right?

My first day back at work felt almost surprisingly normal, but I think it was just muscle memory that got me through the day: enter building, wait for elevator, badge at the door, sit at desk, log on, say hi to coworkers, Starbucks, sit, lunch, sit, go home. Lather, rinse, repeat. Just like any other day. Just like the past few months never happened. But I kept having this nagging feeling in the back of my head that I was forgetting something—

wallet?
nope, it’s in your purse
phone??
no, that’s right there in your pocket
badge???
on your desk where you left it, of course
…baby? Baby! OMG WHERE IS BABY?????
Oh. Right. Breathe.

It was exhausting. I am exhausted. We got home just in time to spend an hour trying to get Ezzie to sleep and now we’re just eeking out some lazy tv time before passing out and doing it all over again tomorrow. Thrilling, I tell you! My life is thrilling.