Milestone | Mommy Geekology 2.0

Tag Archive: milestone

Endings & Beginnings

March 9, 2010 | about mommygeekology, making memories | Tags: it's all about me, milestone, workin mama (not to be confused with 'working girl')

15 Spoke Up - Say Something

It’s Tuesday! I feel this deserves an exclamation point because it’s Not! Monday! It also deserves an exclamation point because it’s the the Second-to-Last! Day! of this job. Thank baby jebus.

I left Company L last May because of layoffs and pay cuts and honestly, it seemed like a sinking ship. I got another job offer for a position working with Company I that sounded like a dream, so I jumped at it. It wasn’t so bad until I realized that my boss hates babies, particularly my babies, and also thinks that children should get sick on a schedule. And when I leave my kids with my day care provider when they are are sick rather than keeping them at home in order to keep from calling out of the office, and my day care provider gets sick, that should happen on a schedule. I should provide at weeks notice for times when I will have to call in sick. I’m only kidding a little.

From an actual email from my boss this year after I had to call out a few times b/c of vomity* children: “We spoke about your pattern of attendance last November**… You have used 3 out of your total 6 Sick days allotted for the year… please make an effort to plan your time out of the office more carefully.”

What. The. Fuck? Who PLANS VOMITING except for bulimics? Is she saying that my children are bulimic? Or is she just really, really stupid? I’m going with stupid. This woman is the worst boss I’ve ever had – and two of my previous bosses sexually harassed and/or propositioned me.

When Company L approached me a couple of weeks ago, I figured it was for some contract work. I left on good terms, and I had worked there for 3 years – I had worked hard, and I had worked in 4 different departments. I know the company & the business process & the people very well. I implemented an enterprise-level CRM & web integration solution while heavily pregnant. Dammit, I loved that company and they ruined it with their pay cuts & their sinking ship. So I thought.

They didn’t want contract work, they wanted to hire me back, in an expanded version of my previous position working with multiple departments, as the Business Tech. Admin. The pay is a little higher, the hours more flexible, and it’s with people I want to work with. The only downside is no more commuting with my husband & working near him. But I also won’t be constantly miserable and fearful that I am going to lose my job if my kid gets anything worse than the sniffles and keeps me out of work.

I wasn’t sure about the stability of the company at first, but I spoke with a few of my old coworkers – it’s a smaller crew now, but things are looking up. Salaries have been restored, there are no more forced furloughs, and certain crappy managers (including the worthless President) have left or stepped down.

I’m excited. I’m excited to do a job that I know I will love. I’m excited to have the flexibility to work home if it’s necessary. I’m excited to be with people my own age again (it’s a much younger company than the one I am now as far as average employee age) and I’m excited because they already know me – I already know them. I can hit the ground running. They remembered my work and asked me for this position first. I feel sort of important, you know? Wanted. Needed. It’s a good feeling.

I’m mostly excited to be done with the stress of this job. The stress of being a full-time working mother who needs to fear for her livelihood because her boss refuses to be flexible. Because only one other person here is the parent of young children. Because the job wasn’t as described in the first place, so it’s unfulfilling.

SQUEE.

* Yes, that’s a word. Anything can be a word if you submit it to Urban Dictionary.
** She wrote me up for my “attendance patterns” after she forgot that I needed to be out of the office to take my mother to get scanned for cancer. But she has a mind like a steel trap! She wouldn’t forget that! She asked me to reschedule the cancer appointment. Because another employee had vacation that day, and it would be the end of the fucking world if someone wasn’t there to answer the phones. No, it would be the end of the fucking world if my mother had had cancer, you douchecanoe. Oh, and I HAD TIME LEFT OVER at the end of the year. GAH!

PS. My kids are very sick, so I’m a little slow on email and on geek projects, but once they’re better I’ll be back up to speed. MUAH. Email me anyway.

PPS. Ewokmama wrote a great post about her experience as a working mama, too, and I love it, so I am sharing.

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Brazilian, Baby {Green Post}

January 8, 2010 | featured, making memories | Tags: brutally honest, i can't make this sh*t up, it's all about me, let's talk about sexxx, marital bliss, milestone, recycled post (I'm green!), reminisce

10 Spoke Up - Say Something

I’m calling this a “Green Post” because it’s been recycled from my old blog. One of the challenges of the Mominatrix #sexualrevolution was to do a little down-low landscaping, and I thought I’d share one of my experiences with waxing. This is supposed to be funny, so LAUGH DAMMIT.

————

I understand that there are some cultures where body hair is accepted, even admired. There are cultures also that demand that women or men remove all or parts of their body hair, either as a religious rite or simply because it is culturally unacceptable otherwise. I tried to do some research on this, but have you ever tried doing a Google search for pubic hair and cultural perspectives? Yeah, don’t. Or turn safe-search on.

Anyway, other cultures aside, my own personal preference is to be clean-shaven – pretty much anywhere that I can be. I love the hair on my head But I also keep that short. I don’t like long hair. Hubby had long hair before we met. If I had known him during his goth or subsequent quasi-goth stages, we would not have dated. When we did meet, he had a nice military haircut. Totally acceptable and attractive!

My reasons for wanting to be hairless “down there” are numerous, from simple to upkeep, to cleanliness, to the “eww gross” factor during oral… the list goes on. No landing strips for me, either. Not a fan. It looks funny, to me. And it’s more upkeep! I’d have to trim and shave. I think that’s asking a bit much from a girl who doesn’t even get to shower as often as she’s like. (Aren’t you glad that you only know me virtually? lol. )

So, with that oh-so-essential background information, my candid account of getting a Brazilian wax while 7 months pregnant last Saturday follows:

***

The spa room was very nice. There were nice fresh sheets and towels on the table in the center of the room. The walls were painted in calming earthy tones, and soothing music played in the background. There were some nice iron scrolls on the walls, a hook and hanger for my clothes, and a display of creams and lotions. I had just come from getting my hair cut and my maternity massage, so I was relaxed and feeling sexy and fun and flirty. The clinician, Rachel, offered me a drink of water or some tea. I politely declined – I think that peeing on the woman clearing out your bush is rude, right? I’ll be honest, I’m fuzzy on the proper protocol during a Brazilian wax.. but I think peeing on people is out unless you’re filming a crazy porn or something.

Rachel, by the way, is absolutely gorgeous. Long, dark, curly hair, big big eyes with long lashes, little cupid mouth. It was almost a little insulting how pretty she was. I mean c’mon. If I’m going to have someone staring at my vagina for an hour, I’d rather that she be less attractive than me. If she’s going to be more attractive than I am, and she’s looking at my vagina, she better not be down there to give me a Brazilian.

(Whoops, just outed myself. Bisexual, anyone?)

So, where was I? Oh yeah. Gorgeous girl, first Brazilian wax, 4 months of growth because I can’t reach my own hoo-hah and a huge pregnant belly.

She told me that I could hang my clothes on the hanger and get up on the table, she’d be right back. That’s right folks, she left while I undressed. She also left while I dressed, at the end. How weird is that? I mean, it’s not like she wasn’t going to see it anyway!

Then again, after I had stripped and gotten up on the table, I draped a towel over myself. Even as I arranged it to keep my bits from showing, I questioned why I was bothering. I mean, she was going to be getting up close and personal. And yet… it would have felt so weird to leave it all hanging out!

So when she comes back in, I’m lying on my back, wondering why they didn’t bother to drywall the ceiling because those dated ceiling tiles are really unattractive to look at, when she pulls my leg to the side and plops some sugar-lemon gel on the area with a little spatula. No “How do you do, let me grab your leg here for a sec.” No “How about dinner? A movie? Sex in the back of my conversion van?” Not even a warning “Let’s go!” Just flip the towel aside, grap the spatula, plop the wax and hello, pain. Let me tell you – that gel is hot. And when it catches on the little hairs, it hurts a little. But I thought to myself, so far, so good. This’ll be quick and dirty. It’l hurt, but then I’ll be able to go, and I’ll never have to look this beautiful woman in the face again. Then she grabbed one of those little waxing strips and laid it on the gel. No problem. Then she took her whole hand (gloved, thankyouverymuch) and rubbed the strip down with significant pressure. Let me just say this – not so much a problem on the bikini line area. Totally strange when you get to the “inner” area. I was really, really glad that I wasn’t going to have to see her outside of this context.

Then she started talking to me, asking when I was due, did I have any names picked? I thought it was a little weird, but figured that she was curious and maybe trying to get her mind off of the task at hand (literally….)

I was right in the middle of telling her that I was due on ((RIP)) ((internal scream of surprise and pain)) November 4th, but that my daughter was ((RIP)) ((oh good lord that burns)) about 10 days early, so ((RIP)) ((I bet I’m as red as a tomato down there right now)) this one might be an October baby. With every bit of gel applied, she would apply the wax strip several times and rip, rip, rip away.

I was horrified at the pain. It burned. It hurt. It ached. It was sharp, and tingly, and there was nothing good about it, no way. I had heard that some women like to get this done. I think that whoever told me that was mistaken. They probably said that they like it as much as they’d like an ice pick to the eye. Or they like it as much as they’d like to swallow burning coals. Or that they like it as much as a visit from their mother-in-law while potty-training their first child, who happens to have diarrhea.

But I had started. And I figured that as long as I could just sit there, deal with the pain, and get it over with, I’d be fine.

But no. Rachel was seriously chatty. She would ask me about how I liked living in B-town, and whether I liked it more than BL-town versus N-city, and how her boyfriend wanted to live in B-town but she wanted to live in N-city even though the commute would be worse, etc etc. Every so often, she’d pause, and squint at my lower half. I’m not sure if she was puzzled, or strategizing, or what. It was all very surreal and strange, and somewhat awkward.

It went on and on. This is not a quick process – it took 50 minutes to get everything.It was a pattern. Apply wax, ask a question, furiously rub on waxing strip, wait until I started my answer, RIP. I swear, she was doing it on purpose. She probably got some sort of sick thrill out of seeing whether she could get me to scream in the middle of my answer. (I’m proud to say that I did not! Though there was much wincing, pausing, and flinching)

I tried to rationalize the whole experience and say that it was good practice for childbirth. I mean, pain at intervals lasting for 30 seconds to a minute (oh, the burning!) while maintaining conversation with the people around you. Because that’s totally how we all imagine our birth experience. Discussion about politics and complex science while also bringing life into the world, without any pain medication. I mean, that’s what my childbirth plan reads…. yeah.

The worst part was the end, though. I had told her that I wanted everything – even the wayyy back – gone. She tells me that the last part is the least painful, don’t worry, and if I could get up on the table on my hands and knees and arch my back, that would be great. (Oh, how many times have I heard that? “This won’t hurt a bit, now bend over… ) So, with my big ass and my pregnant belly and my ridiculous stretch marks, I got up on that table and posed like I was asking Hubby to do it doggy style. My stomach rested on the table. My back was arched, my ass was in the air, and she says to me “That’s great.”

Oh goodness.

So she applies the gel and gets the strip, and right after she pulls the strip off, I start to giggle.

A word of advice: the next time that you’re in a table, ass proudly displayed in the air, while someone removes the hair from your body using a spatula, wax, and some cloth strips, do not giggle. It’s weird. It puts a strange mood in the room. No matter that you quickly, VERY quickly explain that you’re just thinking about how funny this will be to tell people later, and that you’re thinking of getting an at-home wax kit so that your husband can see how it feels to have the hair brutally ripped from his body, or that you know it’s totally inappropriate and you’re so sorry you don’t mean to giggle but you just can’t stop…

It’s weird. And for the last few minutes of that waxing session, there will be a silence in the room, like a thick, wet, flannel blanket, dampening everything. And you’ll still be stifling giggles.

Needless to say, I’ll be back in four weeks to get it done again. (That’s right, go back and read that sentence again. No typos, I promise.) (It lasts four weeks!) (And Hubby is paying!)

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Yearning.

November 10, 2009 | about mommygeekology | Tags: it's all about me, love, milestone, ramblings, workin mama (not to be confused with 'working girl')

13 Spoke Up - Say Something

I am filled with yearning.

I have always enjoyed my time commuting. First, it was just 10 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon to and from high school (Traffic on the way back, all the seniors leaving the school at once. That school parking lot was always crazy jammed up). I drove around town in my little red car feeling young and free and – oh, wait, no, I was in high school. I felt angsty and angry and frustrated. But when I turned on the radio and sang to my favorite songs, everything else seemed to slip away. It was a small moment of peace.

Then college. I was still living at home, commuting to a state school about 40 minutes away according to Google Maps, but about 15 minutes away if I caught traffic at the right time and sped up RT3 like Hell on Wheels. I did that every morning. I listened to music, any music – Reba McIntire, Martina McBride, Joss Stone, Dashboard Confessional, Dispatch, Incubus, Staind – anything I could sing along to. I was a music student. I felt it was my right. I cried when I hit a pothole so bad my radio fell out of my dashboard because it meant I had nothing to sing along to.

Then a real job, and a baby. I drove slower, the music was softer. I stopped singing for a while. I don’t know why. You’d think, that with music being such a strong influence in my life, being a music student at a local college – you’d think I’d sing my baby to sleep every night. I didn’t. I felt embaressed. I feel stupid about it now. I wish I’d sung to her. I drove my baby to my mother’s every day and then went off to work. I sang loudly on my way to work after dropping Cupcake off. Those were some of the best parts of my days. A chance to forget everything that bothered me.

Now another real job, and two babies. I still don’t sing to them every night, but sometimes I’ll hum a little tune. Now I’ll sing along to Backyardigans and Phineas and Ferb, and Cupcake asks me to sing the songs that are on the radio, even the ones I don’t know. She wants me to sing so that she can sing with me. She wants to follow my lead. I am commuting with my husband now, so I don’t sing as loudly. I don’t sing as often. I love going to the store alone because it means a chance to sing, unprofessionally, improperly, just pure emotion. Just sing.

I am filled with yearning.

I want to be on a stage again. I still remember playing Meg in Damn Yankees in high school. It was such a rush. I remember singing during the Spring Sing event, a solo during a choir concert. I remember performing in college. I remember feeling important, sparkly, talented. I remember dancing and singing and delivering lines, my body seemed so light. I felt electrified. I remember blood pounding in my ears at the curtain close. I remember taking a bow. I remember dancing and screaming and celebrating as soon as that curtain hit the stage again, the sound of applause almost distant beyond the congratulatory calls and whistles of my fellow castmembers.

I am filled with yearning.

Say Something

A Few Thoughts

October 7, 2009 | about mommygeekology, featured | Tags: ask the readers, FAIL, i can't make this sh*t up, it's all about me, milestone, mother, my family is crazy, parenting, ramblings

15 Spoke Up - Say Something

This is one of those bullet-style random-ass posts that you probably hate. There are some interesting things going on in the blogosphere this week if you’d like something else to read – you can always see what Mommy Melee is doing (she’s posting every day, whether it’s about her new therapy habit or current events) or read a post by Backpacking Dad with his views on the changes by the FTC concerning bloggers. Or you could donate to baby Jaeli, whose family needs your help getting a few extra dollars (or $1,200) together to support her for the next week with screened breastmilk from a milk bank. Can you skip coffee this afternoon and donate a few dollars? Hubby and I are skipping Starbucks on Friday and donated what we could. Please consider helping.

And now onto the random!

I had to stop receiving the Urban Dictionary’s word of the day email a few months back because they introduced me to a two-word phrase that I wish I’d never, ever heard. I can’t even type it here. I had to go take a snapshot of the definition, because if someone finds my blog by searching this phrase, I will cry and curl up into a corner. Do you see that disgusting phrase? Even worse is the example of it in a sentence. ::shudder:: And the worst part is that I totally used to do that, but for some reason calling it that makes me want to curl up and die a little, and I don’t know why. It just doesn’t sit well with me. So now I can’t blow my nose in the shower anymore. Soon I bet they’ll ruin peeing in the shower and sex in the shower. (Oh you know you do it.)
Low carb diets can suck my butt. (But I totally admire @Messponential for sticking to hers)
I sort of regret undressing my website and revealing the geek beneath to everyone (i.e. designing on the live production site) but ah well. I’ll have to make time. It’s nicer to reveal a shiny new site, but I just don’t have the time damnit. Or something. OK that’s not a good excuse. I’m just a failure. {lol}
Someone on Twitter a few weeks ago ranted about how it’s spelled “dammit” and not “damnit” and now I’m self conscious about using either. Note: Spell check agrees that “dammit” is the right spelling. Food for thought, people. You’ll get nothing but quality here.
It has come to my attention in the last weeks that I am pretty oblivious to most of the drama that happens online. I’ve decided I like it that way

Kid Updates, because this is supposedly a “mommy blog” though you wouldn’t know it to read some of my more recent posts. Ahem. Can we spell “risqu é

” children?

Geeklet has started walking, crawling, etc. Yay! She’s walking! However, she has not stopped crying all fucking day every day. The pediatrician doesn’t see anything wrong, is defaulting to the “teething” diagnosis. I’m not even home with her and it makes the days hard – just hearing about it and knowing that my mother is going through the constant screaming, plus it’s causing issues with Cupcake – she wants more attention but it’s hard to accomodate that with a screaming baby in your ear. Except she’s not quite a baby anymore, she’s turning into a toddler, but still screaming.
It’s not all bad news, Geeklet also has started to say a few words (!!!). While she refuses to say Mama, we’ve definitely heard Dada, some variation on Thank You, “AGAH!” which means “Again!” and something that sounded like Cupcake’s name. Thus it begins.
Cupcake is doing well overall but we are having some trouble with regressing (note: she has super annoying younger sister, did I mention that already?!) and some more trouble at bedtime. She vomited once because she was sick, maybe also because she was sick the second time (a few days later). Now she’s scared of it. My mother is convinced that she is scared of us – meaning myself and DaddyGeek – because she said something about throwing up, yelling and being scared. Right. So obviously we’re screaming at her before bed and she’s throwing up because she’s upset. She couldn’t be wrong or anything. She’s three. She can’t be confused, or not clear in her words. Right? RIGHT?! But my mother has a tendency to assume it’s us ruining Cupcake’s life by default. We’re obviously fucking her up beyond anything in the history of stuff that has ever been fucked up. < /sarcasm>

Other Updates

DaddyGeek’s birthday was at the end of last week. He is awesome, and though I didn’t write a birthday post, or get him a card, or even manage to make him coffee in the morning, he knows that his gift is coming*.
There are a lot of geeky delicious things happening lately, including Google Wave, dipping my feet into complete website design, new Android stuff to dig through as well as Windows 7 – my new favorite Windows platform – and the up-and-coming Windows Mobile 7 which sounds freaking amazing. Definitely an iPhone / Android competitor, in my geeky opinion.

So. What are you doing this week? I want to hear allll about it.

* That’s a play on words. Did you catch it?

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Coming of Age

June 10, 2009 | making memories | Tags: cupcake, milestone

15 Spoke Up - Say Something

Cupcake is going to be three on Monday. One day, I’ll tell her birth story here. Nevertheless, she will be three years old, and she has certainly become a big girl. I feel as though we are hitting new milestones each and every day.

Today, she learned how to put on a long sleeve shirt. Two or three days ago, she learned how to put on pants – leggings, even! A few days before that, she realized she could put on her tank tops by herself by stepping into them and pulling them up. She has started drawing with purpose, as well. Last evening she told me she would draw my picture – a few hasty pen strokes later and there it was: a circle, two slashes/scribbles for eyes, a scribble for a nose and a dash for a mouth.

Is it foolish to look at this simple pen drawing on scrap notebook paper and feel awe?

Me, according to my toddler.

She has become such a big helper, too. It’s amazing. I can convince her to do almost anything if it involves doing it herself. Lately, she does not want to get changed in the morning… but if I tell her she can pick out her clothes, put her pajamas into the laundry bin and get dressed herself, she’s running towards her closet like it’s a chocolate chip factory. At dinnertime, she wants nothing to do with eating until I let her put the food on the plate herself, or, better yet, “cut” her chicken nuggets or “spwinkle” cheese on her food. Turns out that everyone is right – that kid will eat anything if we can sprinkle a little parmesan cheese on it!

She’s a great help to her little sister, too. Geeklet just loves Cupcake — loves to see her smile, loves to watch her move around and walk and run and basically do everything and anything that Geeklet wants to do one day! I know that I can step out of the room to go the bathroom or switch the laundry with little to no tears if I tell Cupcake to go make funny faces at her sister.

Yes, it’s true that the temper tantrums try my patience. Yes, you are correct if you believe that the whining will likely cause me to start twittering things along the lines of “who wants to drink the Kool-Aid with me?” But!

Tell me, how on earth do you stay mad at the little girl who just kicked you repeatedly while you changed her poopy diaper (because we are not potty trained because have a new baby sister and we just moved, so all progress? Halted. Reversed. Sigh) when, at bedtime, she runs up to you and yells “Kisses!” proceeding to hug your legs and kiss you until her little lips can’t kiss anymore? How do you stay irritated that she made a strange moose noise all through dinner because she “wants IT down” (But Honey, I don’t understand what you’re asking?!?!!?!) when you remember this:

Mommy is hanging a picture of Mommy pregnant with Cupcake. Cupcake asks, “Mommy, is that me in your tummy? Is that baby in your tummy?” Mommy smiles indulgently and says “Yes, sweetie. That’s Cupcake in my tummy when you were just a little baby! Before you were born!”

The picture in question. Get outta my belly!

She cocks her head to the side, taps her chin and says, “Ummm, Mommy? I think I wanna get out.”

We died laughing. How, how how how! am I supposed to stay frustrated at the whining and the kicking and the screaming when she is penning our portraits, learning to be independent, acting so damn cute?!

I can’t. And that, my friends, is why the human race is not yet extinct due to lack of procreation/new generations.

A few more of her artistic creations, purely for your viewing pleasure.