cat named pig

I still have a blog. It’s still sitting here, just waiting for updates. And the weird thing is, the longer I go without updating, the harder it seems. I used to post about anything from messes my kids made to cat barf, and I never cared. Now it seems like, if I’m only going to post once a month, it better be good. Yet the content life throws at me (messes, cat barf) never seems to yield anything that would make for a “good” post.

Actually, that’s not totally true. The cat barf thing reminds me — I do have a quick story and in the interest of not over-thinking my little parenting blog, here it is:

A while back, before school ended for the summer (also known as the Good Old Days, when Siena had somewhere — somewhere free — to go each day where she was happy and entertained) we were at the bus stop and Siena’s usual bus stop buddy was not there because she was sick. Her mom had called me that morning, so I told the kids she wasn’t coming to school because she had thrown up.

(Actually, I said “barfed” because I’m all colloquial like that.)

Anyway, as soon as I said that, Elliot looked at me with wide eyes.

“Is she a CAT?”

Because in his little world, only cats barf. And they (well, ours) do so with such frequency and aplomb (loud, dramatic meowing followed by revolting gagging noises following by frantic devouring of the vomitus, because hey! bonus food! score!) that I guess it makes sense he would associate barfing with cats. Sadly.

And on that lovely note, we are heading out to go swimming. But there will be more posting soon, because I am now on break from work for the month of July and we went to Philadelphia and saw good friends get married and Siena wore fairy wings and it was all very exciting and would actually make a much better story than the above. Yet the cat barf, as so often happens, is what’s getting posted for now. Because I’m out of time and people need sunscreen.

“How’s working from home going?” you ask (well, maybe not you, reading this, but a lot of people have been asking me that question lately, and the answer varies wildly depending on the day).

Today’s answer to that question would be the following story about how I spent my morning:

I got up, got dressed in workout clothes, and threw my laptop in my bag before heading to the gym. (This was after dropping Siena off at school, because we missed the bus when she announced upon arriving at the bus stop corner that she absolutely HAD to go potty, right that minute, couldn’t wait till she got to school, etc., PANIC, etc., etc.)

So we got to the gym, I signed Elliot in to the kids’ gym, and grabbed a table to do some quick work before going upstairs to exercise. . . aaaaaand proceeded to sit there, working, for two hours. At which time I had to go get Elliot and take him home for lunch. The only muscles exercised were my fingers from typing (and from dialing the number of the Montessori program where Elliot goes one morning a week, to ask if we could add a morning because clearly this is not enough work time).

So that’s how working from home the gym is going.

Who knew? Who knew I could feel such a deep and fiery hatred for a calendar event I used to look forward to more than anything except Christmas?

If I had to illustrate the week so far in a photo essay (which I can’t, because I am too tired and just generally defeated to go look for the camera), it would be just one photo of me, head buried in my hands, weeping silently. Possibly with my kids in the background beating each other to death with the same two or three toys they won’t stop fighting over. Possibly also with my husband (let’s pretend he isn’t the one taking the picture) in the background relaxing with his laptop, scanning Tweetdeck and casually asking if I want to buy tickets to a show or get a midweek hotel deal. Clearly, Spring Break is not affecting him in the same way it is me.

Maybe that’s because I happen to be dying, slowly and miserably dying, my life’s force ebbing as I type this. . . and from what? From a cold. I mean, it’s not just any cold; it’s the Worst Cold Ever, but I almost wish it was something worse, like malaria, so you would understand the depths of my misery here. A cold is just (*shrug*) something that’s kind of a bummer, everyone gets them, etc. Malaria, on the other hand, garners some respect. Anyway, I guess it doesn’t matter what I’m dying of — the important thing to note is that this post may be my last. Whether Spring Break causes me to off myself, or whether I succumb to the Worst Cold in the History of Colds, No Seriously, No One Has Ever Been This Sick From a Stupid Cold, I may not be around much longer. . . .

I leave all my worldly belongings to the person who can make my kids stop fighting. (I assume stating my final wishes on my blog is the same as updating my will, right?) Enjoy the iPhone, MacBook, and some clothes that aren’t really in style any more.

I’ve been talking about work a lot lately, so instead of telling you that I’ve been too busy working this week to post anything here, I’ll just say we’ve been too busy constructing this in our basement:

No, seriously, watch it again. And then come over and watch it with Elliot, because he hasn’t stopped asking about it since the second it ended the last time he watched. Siena’s pretty obsessed too.

Siena falls asleep as I’m reading our nightly chapter of Betsy Tacy. I give her a kiss and whisper, “I love you,” before getting up to leave the room. She wakes up and asks, sleepily, “Will you give me some cuddles?” I lie back down and pull her close.

As I’m lying there my mind wanders. Work, and then other things we have going on, and I find myself thinking about languages. The kids have been making great progress learning Spanish. Elliot adds vocabulary at a rate that amazes me, and his conversation is peppered with random Spanish words for shapes and colors. This morning he casually asked, “Where’s my oso polar?” We all knew he was looking for the paper polar bear he made in class on Wednesday, but I hadn’t realized he had even picked up on the Spanish name for it. Siena, for her part, corrects my pronunciation of almost any Spanish word I might try to say. Her accent, at least to my ears, sounds amazingly close to the real thing.

I remember that feeling, when I studied in Paris, of finally starting to sound like I had some business speaking French, like I wasn’t just a tourist looking for a buttery croissant and a halfway-decent free public restroom. (The former, easy to find. The latter, not so much.) I loved being able to really converse with people, asking questions not formulated by a textbook and actually understanding the answers. I loved being able to use slang without everyone chuckling, like “Oh, cute, the foreigner just said a slang word.”

When I started dreaming in French, I was hooked. I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of my life moving from country to country, staying long enough to develop a certain level of fluency, or at least competence, in the language and culture. France, Spain, and Italy were first. Four days in Morocco gave me just enough time to learn the Arabic alphabet and start recognizing letters in street signs (it helped that all the signs were also in French and Spanish), and I wanted to stay much longer. I was fascinated by how different it seemed from Spain, just a short ferry ride away. And I have always wanted to learn Japanese. And Greek. And Portuguese — similar to the languages I’ve studied, but just different enough that I’m intrigued.

I crave travel, but not just visiting — I crave living abroad, meeting people, becoming a regular at the corner bar, fumbling around in an unfamiliar language and city until suddenly it feels less fumbley and more like regular life.

***

It’s been a little bumpy lately, with the new job(s) and reconfiguring of routines. Not all bad, necessarily, just up and down. Siena, as I’ve mentioned, told me she didn’t want me to ever get another new job again. Or words to that effect. We had a rough couple of days this past week when she was home sick and Elliot went on nap strike. I couldn’t get anything done; we were all pretty unhappy with each other. Even when Siena felt better and went back to school, she seemed extra-emotional and would fall to pieces over every little thing.

I decided she and I needed an afternoon outing, just the two of us. No work, no boys. I weighed the options — we could go out to lunch, see a movie, go to a museum/zoo/library. All fun, all worth doing. I’m not sure why I suggested instead that we go get her ears pierced. I mean, it sounds insane as I’m typing it. Who takes a child who’s tired, emotional, and recovering from a cold (and possibly seething with resentment about Mama’s new work commitments) and brings them to a crowded mall store for a procedure involving sharp objects being jabbed into soft flesh? I do, apparently.

She’s been talking about wanting pierced ears since her fifth birthday, with equal parts dread and longing. Terrified of pain, she agonizes over every doctor’s appointment where she might get a shot. I didn’t know when she’d actually want the earrings badly enough to go through with the piercing. But I know my daughter, and I know that she is as tough as she is dramatic. And she could use something to feel proud of and excited about, after the week we’d had. And she really, really loves earrings. . . .

***

We watch two other girls go first, one slightly older than Siena and one a teenager. No one cries or screams or faints, but Siena still tugs my arm and steps out of the store. I kneel down; we confer.

“I’m not sure I still want to do this.”

“You don’t have to do this. It’s your choice, but I want you think about whether you’ll be sad when we leave if you don’t do it.”

She wavers. “Can we go back in and think about it some more?” I say yes, but when we step back in, they’re ready for us. She climbs reluctantly into the chair and the Ear Piercing Specialist (this may not be her actual job title) shows her the equipment, then gives her a teddy bear to hold, a large bear with five earrings pierced into one ear. I find this both hilarious and heartbreaking — who are these mothers, taking girls young enough to still be comforted by stuffed animals to get their ears pierced? Oh, right. What am I doing? And then, suddenly furious with myself, This was a terrible idea.

I sign the forms and Siena chooses her earrings. Tiny round rubies, her birth stone. Then follows a long analysis of the precise placement of the marker dots showing where the earrings will go — I’ll say this, the Ear Piercing Specialist is more meticulous about her job than I could ever be. Siena grips my hand, squeezes the bear, and click, one ear done. A handful of women in the store murmur approvingly about how great she’s doing and click, the other one is done. Siena looks shocked that it’s over for about half a second before her face explodes into smiles.

The whole way home, it’s all she can talk about: “I didn’t think I’d even be able to do it; I thought it was going to hurt sooo bad, and I did it! I feel like such a really big girl now. Like my big girl cousins. I can’t believe I can wear earrings now!”

I grin back, relieved that it went OK, thrilled to see her so excited and proud of herself. Maybe I did make the right call, after all. Maybe I do know what I’m doing.

After weeks of fumbling around, there it is: that feeling of fluency.

I love how I wrote that last post about working from home and how I more or less have it all figured out and it’s going just fine, and then today Siena is home sick and I am just now sitting down to work for the first time at 2:46 p.m., which probably means I will be up until 2:46 a.m. finishing the work that hasn’t gotten done all day. (Yeah, you’re right — technically I still have not yet sat down to work, since I felt the need to blog about it before actually doing it. I always do this — deliberately waste time on trivial stuff when I’m really busy — and knowing I’m doing it does nothing to stop me from doing it. Apparently there is some masochistic part of me that goes “Yeah, this is bad, but let’s make it a little worse and see what that’s like.” Dear Self: It is NOT exciting! It will never be exciting to be up late trying to meet a deadline! It will only ever be stressful and crappy and you will be tired and hate yourself for doing this to yourself. Just do the damn work already!)

So I guess I’ll go do some work now. And in lieu of a decent blog post, I will leave you the promise of a longer post coming soon — a story about Elliot and a medical appointment and a temper tantrum heard on Jupiter. I’ll do my best to make it entertaining, because some good, somehow, has to come out of those excruciatingly loud forty-five minutes of my life that I’ll never get back. I’m all about the silver lining.

Oh, and one more thing before I really get to work: did I mention that a mere two months into the whole working from home thing, Elliot has decided to give up napping? So I have a grumpy, tired, yet decidedly not sleeping little shadow who follows me from room to room messing up my stacks of paper and kvetching about not being tired even though GAHRR YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY TIRED OR YOU WOULDN’T BE ACTING LIKE THIS JUST GO TAKE A DAMN NAP ALREADY!

I guess we all have our self-defeating behavior patterns.

[Editor's Note: The majority of this post was written on. . . wait for it. . . February THIRD. Which I think was also the last time I remembered I had a blog. That should give you some indication of how the whole working thing is going. BUSY, is how it's going. But no dependents (human or feline) have gone unfed, and I think everyone's still wearing relatively clean clothes. It looks like a little blog neglect might be the worst side effect so far. Read on, for a rambling post three weeks in the making. . . .]

So. I have a new job. Well, a couple of new jobs actually. A combination of freelance projects and website editing that all came together in the last few weeks. Since I had made a New Year’s resolution to find work, meaning the steady kind with consistent paychecks (instead of the sporadic kind with infrequent paychecks that I’ve perfected over the last couple years), I am pretty happy about this. In fact, this may be the most resolution-keeping success I’ve ever experienced (my gym card definitely isn’t getting swiped any more often than usual, even though I make that one every year). Now “Get Job” is solidly crossed off the to-do list, and I’m trying to get the hang of having the job(s).

It’s not the working so much that’s a challenge. It’s still doing everything else we were doing before. I don’t want to spend any less time with Elliot during the days (although now we sometimes “spend time together” sitting side-by-side on the couch, me with my MacBook and him with the toy laptop the kids got for Christmas). I don’t want to do any less cooking, cleaning, laundry, or shopping for groceries. (I mean, I want to do a lot less of all that; in fact, I never want to do some of those things again, but I still want them to be done every day. And done my way with care. So we’re readjusting the division of household labor, and I’m trying to take deep breaths and not freak out that OMG THE DISHWASHER IS LOADED WRONG AND THAT WILL NEVER GET CLEAN IF YOU DON’T RINSE IT FIRST.)

To free up some more time, I considered, for a minute, cutting back on the yoga classes I regularly attend. Matt strongly, STRONGLY, encouraged me not to do this. Turns out he likes me better when I consistently go to yoga. Apparently it makes me a nicer person to live with. (Less scream-y about the dishwasher loading, etc.)

So for the most part, our weekday routine of yoga/kids’ gym, home for games of UNO, lunch, dishes, laundry, etc., basically chugs along as it has since the early fall. But now work somehow takes place at the same time: a quick e-mail here, an article posted there, a muttered curse word when the phone rings just as we’re heading out to meet the school bus. Stress levels are slightly elevated (a month in an ashram, like in Eat Pray Love, wouldn’t be enough yoga to make me an ideal housemate under these circumstances) but I think we’re all adjusting.

Siena did tell me the other day that she hates my new job and that, when this job is done, she doesn’t want to hear about me getting any other jobs ever again. “If I even hear you thinking about another new job after this one, Mama, you better just turn and walk away from it and not do it.” Well. OK, then. Tell me how you really feel.

There’s more I want to say about that conversation, but it’s probably going to require a separate blog post. And a margarita.

For now, I want to talk about the best part of my new job(s), aside from the paychecks: I get to work from home. Which was probably obvious when I stated that nothing in the routine has drastically changed, except me being glued to my iPhone for non-Facebook-related reasons. Anyway, I love working from home because it means that I don’t have to go to work in an office. Or a factory. Or any place that would require me to leave my house by a certain time and dressed in a certain manner every morning.

I do have to leave the house on time to get Siena to the bus stop, but I can do it wearing whatever I want. Which mostly, this winter, turns out to be Matt’s red fleece sweatpants and huge boots. And then I can go home and take a shower like a normal person, or answer a work call and scramble around for a while before stopping to make Elliot a sandwich and then looking up to realize hey, it’s 4:00 and Siena’s home and we need snacks and dinner and wow, I should really shower before I go to bed.

Hmm. I do not seem to be painting a glamourous picture here. Do you believe me when I tell you I still find this set-up preferable to purchasing a new wardrobe of business casual separates and driving to work every day? Because I do. And not really because of what I wear.

It’s because of this:

Best officemate ever.

Matt hates how bad my hearing is. I’m constantly asking him to repeat stuff, or just plain hearing it totally wrong.

Like just now, for example, when I overheard him talking to Siena, who was watching a travel show about Paris on public television. (That’s right, my daughter chose to spend her Saturday afternoon watching a TPT travel program about Paris. And also one about Barcelona. I consider all my goals as a parent officially accomplished.)

So when the show featured a nightclub with cancan dancers, I thought I heard Matt say:

“When this is over, I’ll let you watch a movie about Paris called Moulin Rouge that has lots of singing and dancing like this.”

Needless to say, I was shocked. I flew into the room shaking my head and gesturing at Siena, who was curled up in the armchair by the TV.

“Moulin Rouge? No way — she’s WAY too young for that!”

Matt rolled his eyes and peevishly repeated what he had actually said, which was:

“WHEN YOU’RE OLDER, I’ll let you watch a movie about Paris called Moulin Rouge.”

He then glared at me until I apologized. Well, excuuuuse me for not wanting to explain to my five-year-old what a prostitute is. Or why Nicole Kidman keeps coughing blood into her handkerchief.

Coolest. Thing. Ever.

Sent to me by my mom, who is also pretty cool and who has a birthday this week. Happy birthday, Mom! I love you!

And for everyone (both of you) reading who is NOT my mom, enjoy:

We have the dubious distinction of owning the dumbest cat ever to breathe air. [Warning: this post NSFL (Not Safe For Lunch) -- if you're eating while you read, you might want to come back later.]

Here’s what I DON’T want to deal with before 7:00 a.m., ever again:

Pig scarfs down her breakfast, then heads to the dining table to chow on whatever the kids have left in their cereal bowls, then immediately barfs it all back up. Onto the table runner on our dining table, because OF COURSE.

But she doesn’t stop there. She promptly begins eating the regurgitated mess as fast as she can, because, again, OF COURSE. Who wouldn’t want to eat their own vomit? Never mind that it obviously didn’t work out so well the first time around — why not try again? You wouldn’t want to let that meal go to waste.

But here’s the best part: in her haste (excitement? Pig: “Sweet! More food!”) to re-eat her cat chow and stolen Kashi, she also eats a hole into the table runner. A baseball-sized hole. HOW DO YOU INGEST THAT MUCH FABRIC WITHOUT NOTICING? Or did she notice and just not care, because “Hey! Sweet! More food!”

Yeah. Not even for sale. You can totally just have her. For free.