As I sit here in my office there are a hundred other things I should be doing instead of updating my sorry excuse for a blog. But by damn, I cannot and will not go another day without some small semblance of a creative outlet in my life.
Recently, I am Mama, and all that goes with it - wiper of noses, reader of stories, maker of lunches, warmer of bottles, and soother of owies, not to mention cleaner of toilets, scrubber of counters, baker of muffins, mopper of floors, payer of bills, doer of laundry. It's been a long time since I was just Paige, Creative Person. Writer of stories. Singer of songs. Painter of pictures. Organizer of closets (and oh yes, I perhaps miss the organizing the very most).
Carter will be 18 months old tomorrow, and I am finally getting around to attempting a balance between Mommy and, well, Me. For a year and a half, it's been all Carter, all the time, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Our boy is beautiful and brilliant and a hundred thousand other superlatives and I love every exhilarating, exhausting, exasperating moment with him. I love that he's suddenly speaking in sentences, and we can actually have conversations. I love that he says please and thank you. I love hearing him learn to count - "TWO! Two footballs!" I love that he finds me endlessly hilarious. I even love that when he wakes up in the middle of the night during the current teething/18-month sleep regression/insanity that seems to have overtaken us for the past several nights, he only wants Mama (no hard feelings, honey).
...but occasionally, Mama needs a break. And that's okay. Because it's okay to have lunch with a girlfriend instead of going to visit him at daycare. And it's okay to get a haircut during his Saturday nap instead of frantically scrubbing the bathtub and scouring the sink. It's okay to attempt - dare I say it? - balance.
Work has been brutal for the past several months. One of my co-workers left the company in early December, reducing our two-person department down to yours truly. I've been running things by myself ever since, and doing a damn fine job of it, if I do say so myself - but it's no walk in the park. At the end of the day, I have just enough energy to pick Carter up at daycare and do dinner-bath-bedtime before I pass out in a delirious fog on the (sweet, beautiful, luscious) couch.
I've been working hard, and I'm proud of myself. For months, I've been busting my arse to be the A+ employee and the A+ Mama, but I've definitely been flunking the Nurturing Paige's Sanity course, and probably getting a B- on Being Affectionate to Your Husband (again - sorry, LOML).
So here I go, starting slow. I've been having lunch with friends. I cut my mop of hair, and even styled it (okay, once). I fully plan to do my nails one of these days. And maybe, just maybe, I will dust off my old journal, put pen to paper (gasp!), and just be Paige again.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Carter 2010
I've been a very naughty and neglectful blogger recently, but I am hoping to get back to it soon. In that spirit, here is my little Roo retrospective from 2010. Enjoy!
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Bag Lady
I love handbags. Not as much as I love shoes, and definitely not NEARLY as much as I love hats, but I do love them. Pre-baby, I'd amassed a decent collection of fabulous bags. My favorite was a sleek red leather number (possibly faux, although I may have actually shelled out for the Real Thing on this one - this was during my pre-veggie days...although who am I kidding? I still buy leather, although it's definitely frowned upon by the veghead community - sorry, friends). It was small but not too small, chic enough for day or night, and just, well, fabulous. I came across it last weekend while cleaning out the hall closet during the Roo's nap - there it was, lying around in a pile of equally fabulous bags, all neglected and unloved.
Since I became a mother, I have become a new kind of bag lady - and not the fabulous kind. Every day I schlep around one of two Gap bags - black or tan - which have become increasingly filled with random crap as the months pass. A brief perusal of my bag today found three boxes of eye drops, three bottles of contact solution, deodorant, a full-size hairbrush, two tubs of sunblock, 87 zillion receipts and a bottle of acidophilus pills, in addition to the usual suspects - make-up bag, mints, comb, keys, phone, yaddayadda.
The reality that this is my purse is vaguely terrifying, because it makes it official - I am becoming my mother. For as long as I can remember, my mother's purse has contained a vast, seemingly endless amount of useless crap, and I would tease her mercilessly about it. "What is so hard about cleaning out your purse??" I would taunt.
Flash-forward a decade or so and now THAT IS MY BAG.
Perhaps one of these days I will take a few moments to shovel all the junk out and replace it with an amazing new bag like Erica found on Etsy. But until then, I will just suck it up and say sorry for the harrassment, mom.
Since I became a mother, I have become a new kind of bag lady - and not the fabulous kind. Every day I schlep around one of two Gap bags - black or tan - which have become increasingly filled with random crap as the months pass. A brief perusal of my bag today found three boxes of eye drops, three bottles of contact solution, deodorant, a full-size hairbrush, two tubs of sunblock, 87 zillion receipts and a bottle of acidophilus pills, in addition to the usual suspects - make-up bag, mints, comb, keys, phone, yaddayadda.
The reality that this is my purse is vaguely terrifying, because it makes it official - I am becoming my mother. For as long as I can remember, my mother's purse has contained a vast, seemingly endless amount of useless crap, and I would tease her mercilessly about it. "What is so hard about cleaning out your purse??" I would taunt.
Flash-forward a decade or so and now THAT IS MY BAG.
Perhaps one of these days I will take a few moments to shovel all the junk out and replace it with an amazing new bag like Erica found on Etsy. But until then, I will just suck it up and say sorry for the harrassment, mom.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Typhoid Mary, at your service
I always thought I was a decent sick person - the non-complaining, suck-it-up, take-it-like-a-woman no-really-I'm-fine type of sick person. But I've recently come to the conclusion that throughout our relationship, my husband's sweet-natured attentiveness during any of my little coughs and colds has spoiled me. These days, after I come home from work and tuck the Roo into bed, I curl onto the couch while he brings me soup and tea to assist in my battle against The Cold That Will Not Die (TCTWND, if you're into abbreviations). And I must say, it's lovely to be babyied when you're feeing crappy. So I sit there, sniffing and snarfing and asking for more, or just one more glass of water, or perhaps a footrub please, until I eventually pry myself off to perhaps scrub some bottles (thought lately he's been handling most of that too) and stumble to bed.
Evil cold aside, I feel like I've been drifting in a fog lately, as double eye infections have left me unable to wear my contact lens for the past five days (I stopped being contagious as soon as I started treating it last week, so fortunately I didn't pass it to the Roo). So I've been half-blind, and it feels disconcertingly like I'm existing in a dream state from which I cannot wake. Perhaps some glasses are in order, you say? I thought so too, but at my last optometrist visit they told me that I couldn't wear glasses - something about the perfect LASIK-induced vision in one eye and the totally shite vision in the other eye being incompatible for glasses, yadda yadda. So here I am - and I never realized how much I take my vision for granted until I couldn't see every minute detail on Carter's little face. Thankfully, tomorrow morning I have the green light to pop my lens back in and rejoin the human race.
Evil cold aside, I feel like I've been drifting in a fog lately, as double eye infections have left me unable to wear my contact lens for the past five days (I stopped being contagious as soon as I started treating it last week, so fortunately I didn't pass it to the Roo). So I've been half-blind, and it feels disconcertingly like I'm existing in a dream state from which I cannot wake. Perhaps some glasses are in order, you say? I thought so too, but at my last optometrist visit they told me that I couldn't wear glasses - something about the perfect LASIK-induced vision in one eye and the totally shite vision in the other eye being incompatible for glasses, yadda yadda. So here I am - and I never realized how much I take my vision for granted until I couldn't see every minute detail on Carter's little face. Thankfully, tomorrow morning I have the green light to pop my lens back in and rejoin the human race.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Whiny McWhinerstein
Gaaah! Aaack! Waaah!
...ahem...
I just thought I would preface what I knew would be a whiny, cranky post with appropriate sound effects. Consider yourself duly forewarned.
For the past nine days, the Roo has been sick with a cold. It's finally dissapating, leaving only a slight snot-trail in its wake, but in the span of the past week my husband and I have also managed to glean our own various afflictions. First he had a stuffy nose, sore throat, etc. but it vanished fairly rapidly, as he's of good solid Russian stock and his people have no time for such nonsense out on the tundra and whatnot.
Then I said heck, why should he have all the fun? and one-upped him with my very own snarf, clogged nose, fever, upset stomach, yadda yadda. THEN I awoke this morning - after passing out cold on the couch at 8:45 last night - with a STYE in my EYE. "Hot damn!" you're saying. "I sure would love to come play a round of checkers at Chez Draitser!" Well you can't, friends. This delicious brew of crap is mine, all mine!
I'm a little loopy today, if you couldn't tell. But I seem to finally be feeling a little better, save for the wonky eye (which, incidentally, means that I really shouldn't be wearing my contact in it, but you see, I can't DRIVE without my contact - or at least, cannot drive well enough to ensure that I do not hurt myself or others - and I do not own glasses, because I had LASIK in my left eye ten years ago and they couldn't do the right one, so I wear ONE contact lens. Thus, no contact = strange one-eye badness = no drivey for me). Fortunately it sounds grosser than it looks - mercifully, you can't actually see it - and Dr. Wikipedia says these little bastards go away on their own in a few days, so here's hoping.
In the meantime, GAAAH! Grumble. Blargh.
...ahem...
I just thought I would preface what I knew would be a whiny, cranky post with appropriate sound effects. Consider yourself duly forewarned.
For the past nine days, the Roo has been sick with a cold. It's finally dissapating, leaving only a slight snot-trail in its wake, but in the span of the past week my husband and I have also managed to glean our own various afflictions. First he had a stuffy nose, sore throat, etc. but it vanished fairly rapidly, as he's of good solid Russian stock and his people have no time for such nonsense out on the tundra and whatnot.
Then I said heck, why should he have all the fun? and one-upped him with my very own snarf, clogged nose, fever, upset stomach, yadda yadda. THEN I awoke this morning - after passing out cold on the couch at 8:45 last night - with a STYE in my EYE. "Hot damn!" you're saying. "I sure would love to come play a round of checkers at Chez Draitser!" Well you can't, friends. This delicious brew of crap is mine, all mine!
I'm a little loopy today, if you couldn't tell. But I seem to finally be feeling a little better, save for the wonky eye (which, incidentally, means that I really shouldn't be wearing my contact in it, but you see, I can't DRIVE without my contact - or at least, cannot drive well enough to ensure that I do not hurt myself or others - and I do not own glasses, because I had LASIK in my left eye ten years ago and they couldn't do the right one, so I wear ONE contact lens. Thus, no contact = strange one-eye badness = no drivey for me). Fortunately it sounds grosser than it looks - mercifully, you can't actually see it - and Dr. Wikipedia says these little bastards go away on their own in a few days, so here's hoping.
In the meantime, GAAAH! Grumble. Blargh.
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