When earphones just aren't enough.

I took someone's advice recently and got mysef some earphones to use at work so people will stop interrupting me while I'm working. Unfortunately, it's not stopping anyone from talking to me. Maybe it's because my big, curly hair hides the earphones. Maybe it's because people in my office are rude or clueless or maybe it's all three. All I know is that every. Damn. Time. I try to work, I wind up with someone knocking on my cube wall. I ignore them for as long as I can until they start calling my name.

"Hey. Hey. Um, Andi. Andi? I have just one quick question. " Grrr... This is incredibly annoying, especially when, thanks to one particular person, our office is loud enough to begin with.

This is yet one more argument for telecommuting - I got so much done when I was a freelance writer. I had absolutely nothing to distract me from my work (I can be very disciplined when I want to) and got about two times as much done in half the time. It doesn't help that the aforementioned annoying person wanders about the office bragging about her impending promotion, even though a) she hasn't been here a year, b) her product is not working, c) she received the promise from someone notorious for going back on promises and d) it completely destroys morale within the group.

Ah, to be young and stupid again. This is her first job out of school and it really shows. Jeez, it's loud.

Ah, now I get it.

I've often spoken with disdain about "helicopter parents." I'd like to think I'll have the strength not to be one - after all, calling a teacher to argue with him or her about giving my child a bad grade does seem almost as absurd as calling my child's future employers to see if the job will give him what he wants/needs in a job. However, after last night, I do kind of understand how much cutting the cord, even a little bit, sucks.

Am I being overdramatic? Oh, hell yes! But knowing that didn't stop me from feeling a little bummed last night when we got home to a quiet, Ragsy-free home for the first time in two years. I never thought it would be sad knowing I wouldn't be woken by the sound of a door slamming open, then closed and little feet padding to my bedside and the dreaded, "Hi, mommy," that my son greets me with every morning at 6:30 or before.

Kids can be so annoying. When you have them for the first time, you initially wonder how you can love something and dislike it so much at the same time. I mean, I've got brothers and sisters - two of whom are 15 years younger than I am. So it's not like I've never been around a helpless baby before. But at least I could give them back and leave. I thought I was prepared when I had Ragsy, then we had the complications which amplified the typicaly post-birth hormones and all the other emotional crap you go through.

In my painfully honest moments with myself, I admit that there were many times I did not like him at all. But now, even when he's deliberately going through his list to push all my buttons just to see what my reaction is like a sadistic little dictator, I don't dislike him anymore. No matter how much I snap at him, I no longer feel like giving him to someone and running away. So last night was hard even if it was small. And in my head, I've blown it up to one of those teeny, tiny firsts in a long, long list of teeny, tiny firsts that takes him a little bit further away from me. Isn't that silly?

We even stopped by after we had dinner because we couldn't get anyone on the phone and wanted to make sure he wasn't crying. By the time we had gotten there, we were ready to pack him up and take him home, to cuddle him and hold him close, all of us piling into his bed together and watching him drift off. We would swoop in and save the day. But they said he'd gorged himself on pizza, enjoyed himself thoroughly and promptly conked out. All by himself and without us there. It was only three months ago that he couldn't sleep through the night without me or his dad.

He clearly still needs us. But he's more independent than we thought he was. The little man can obviously hold his own sometimes better than we can.

Walk awhile.

My husband and I are currently relaxing (okay, he's sleeping; I couldn't once the snoring started) from a hike we just took in Shaw Nature Preserve. It was gorgeous - if you've never been there, I highly recommend it. They have these spectacular wildflower gardens and just generally beautiful, well-kept trails. Entry is $3 per adult and free for under 12.

We strolled/walked for two hours, ate lunch, which we brought, and came back. I can't think of a better way to celebrate an annivesary. Also, tonight is Ragsy's first sleepover, so we'll have even more time tonight to go to dinner and maybe see a movie (though we were never really movie-goers to begin with, so if we don't it won't matter) or just hang out.

I'm a little nervous about Ragsy's first night away from home. I've been trying to prepare him for it by talking it up instead of us picking him up from daycare only to take him back and run in the opposite direction. In response, he's been slighly more cranky over the last few days. Still, even if he's cranky, it's more honest to do it this way even if it does suck.

It would have been nice to have had his first sleepover at a family member's house; however, since none of our family is nearby and he's probably more familiar with the people at daycare than he is with his grandmother or aunt and uncle, it seemed more natural for us to go this route instead.

Of course, then I'm beginning to question the idea of having him do a sleepover period. I'm glad we waited this long to do it. Still, I feel like a bad mother packing my kid off to sleep somewhere else. Oh, well - we'll see what happens. He'll probably hate it and let us have it when we pick him up. Whether or not we go to his 9:30 a.m. swimming lesson tomorrow is still up for grabs - if he's too upset, we'll just go home. Ugh, I wish I had known motherhood came with so much guilt.

Ah, well. Here I am, watching A Haunting while my husband sleeps and freaking myself out to no end. Bad idea. At least someone else is home.

A day off?

It is wonderful to have a day off. Ragsy is at daycare, though I'll pick him up early. My husband is at work. I'm apparently relaxing. But I can't relax. I don't know when it happened, but at some point, cleaning became a liesure activity. I think it's because I rarely get to do it without a child or husband underfoot. With that in mind, before I pick Ragsy up, I intend to spend at least an hour writing.

Other things I'd like to do this week while I have time off (assuming that my husband, who's off tomorrow and Friday to celebrate our anniversary permits):

1. Garden - trim the hedges between our house and next door; finish mixing the new hummus with the rest of the soil and remulch and plant the veggie and flower seeds I have.

2. Buy an electric mower that works and patio furniture. Oooh. And maybe a grill for BBQ.

3. Sew. I haven't gotten to do that in forever.

4. Eat out and maybe even see a movie. (The last one I saw in the theater was last March when we saw The 300.)

There are tons of other things I can think of, but those are at the top of the list for right now.

Wait, what?

While enjoying my lunch, I've been reading a few articles linked to fark.com, one of my favorite Web sites. As I was reading, I had a "Huh?" moment. I have a lot of those moments reading so-called news today, but this one more than usual.

I found this article about Mormon women. At first, it looked pretty interesting - I kind of like reading about the history of certain fashions, particularly those related to certain religions. And much of the first part of the article was interesting. They had an anthropologist there talking about the style of dress, what it meant, etc. In other words - someone to provide objective information about why these women choose to wear what they wear. However, toward the end of the article, Hollywood and New York fashion "experts" (what I usually think of as style commentators) started chiming in with their opinions.

While I agree, the dress these women wear is not the most flattering, it seems like these people are exposed to enough criticism as it is. What covers their butts is the last thing that needs worrying about.

A truly pointless post? Perhaps. But as I've said, I've had a lot of those recently. I've also been reading a lot of "news" lately, so it's probably damaging if not eliminating brain cells. Which brings me to another thing I read recently. It was an article published in the New York Post about a woman who let her 9-year-old child find his way home on public transport in New York. The kid actually asked to do so, so the author of the article provided him with money for a phone call, a $20 bill, a map of the city and subway and a metro card.

Apparently, many parents were absolutely horrified that the kid was allowed to do this, despite the fact that he got home just fine and the mom had gone over the route with him before. Those horrified parents commented that what she had done was tantamount to child abuse. I'm of two minds about this one. I hardly think that allowing a mature 9-year-old child with plenty of on-hand resources find his way home is child abuse. And I can still remember walking the mile to and from school when I was six with my seven-year-old sister. It was no big deal and we walked along a (for our town) relatively busy street.

I'd like my son to be able to do the same thing, though perhaps not at the same age I did (perhaps between 8 and 10?). Still, it's hard to let go. I'm betting that the first time I let Ragsy walk to someone's house by himself I'll be sneaking after him in a trenchcoat with a GPS. Oh, well. Guess you gotta let 'em grow up sometime. I just thank god the time for us isn't right now.

Nonsense

I've noticed that I've been posting total nonsense lately. I re-read my post from yesterday and found myself scratching my head thinking, "Whah?" I'm trying to figure out why - I think it has something to do from being so tired. Or maybe my brain just fizzled out after last week's stress extravaganza. And now I'm like the guy in office space - I just don't care, I've got a completely befuddled, relaxed smirk on my face and am likely to cut out at the least little opportunity.

Ah, well. I'm getting stuff done, just not stressing about it very hard. I guess that's the way to go; however, around here people don't seem to think you're working unless you're freaking out. I still haven't figured out why that is - maybe I'm more important if I'm screaming? Hmmm...

Weedy.

I remember when I used to like dandelions. They were fun - you rubbed them on your friends' arms and they turned yellow (the arms, not the friends - at least not all of them). Now they're kind of a weed and it stinks pulling them out. Again, because things are not as they used to be even 10 years ago. Great example: when I was an archaeologist over the summers, I could pull out a worm with my bare fingers and fling it at someone without cringing or having trouble eating pasta later. Now, not so much.

I was pulling out some dandelions with my bare fingers today and encountered a slug and rolly pollies and nearly ran in the opposite direction screaming my head off. Silly me - I realize that bugs are to be expected in a garden, some of them even desired. They mean that your soil is healthy and can support life (unless that life is grubs, then they destroy your soil). But I can't seem to help but have this very extremely reaction now - and even worse, it's just the opposite of the reaction I used to have. How very annoying. And embarrassing. Still, I love doing the gardening anyway. It's one of the few projects (other than writing and cooking) that I can work hard at and wind up with a satisfying, finished product - even if it does need to be done over and over - and I can call it my own. Even better, it's probably the only project I do that also entertains my son. My husband? Nope - to him, work is work, even if it is outside on a nice, sunny day. Good thing I like it, or we'd be screwed.

Anyway, back to cooking lunch for the adults. Mmmm... Homemade spinach-garlic pizza.

When being awake doesn't improve things.

I'm still just as insensible as I was when I woke up at 4:30 this morning, perhaps even moreso. I'm betting it'd help if I'd shut up for five seconds and got some sleep instead of yakking and yakking at you here. But I'm feeling talkative and my husband is downstairs buying music.

It's been a strange few days at work and at home, mostly because I've just left work early and come home, so I'm not where I'm technically supposed to be. Unfortunately, I don't really care and I can't make myself. I get that I'm paid to be doing work within a certain time period; however, given that I'm slow for the first time at work in my recent memory, I'm certainly not desperate to rush around trying to act busy and panicked simply to appear to justify my own existence at work. This attitude will have to disappear by the time I walk into work Monday. While I do think it's a deserved attitude, it's also a slippery slope as noted earlier. Feeling entitlement to anything is never good - it can make you sloppy.

I should probably shut this off and go to bed. I should also probably tidy up a few things before tomorrow so I don't find myself wondering why my son's sunglasses are in the bathroom sink (he refused to take them off after we got out of the car, when he didn't need them anyway, and only took them off before his bath so he could take his shirt off). There's a lot of stuff I should do. But I'm not gonna right now. Instead of doing what I should do, I'm going to shut this off, kiss my husband good night and go read a trashy novel in bed. If I'm lucky, I won't doze off with it on my chest - even though I make no secret of reading them ("research," right??), I'd still prefer my husband not to read the back cover of a romance novel I'm reading even if it's one of those books I've read so many times it's almost a security blanket because of its familiarity.

Just when I managed to relax...

We just had a very mild earthquake, I think. What was funny about it was that before I went to bed I wa. s convinced something was going to happen tonight, so I walked around replacing all the old batteries in the flashlights and put them in our room, wondering what we'd do if there were some sort of disaster.

The dogs in the neighborhood are finally calming down. Anyway, waking like that has always given me a start. It used to happen all the time in Chile, where anything under 7.0 was considered a temblor or tremor. My host family thought it hilarious that it used to freak me out so much, but I've never gotten over it. And it's too close to the time I'd need to wake up anyway, so I figured I'd just get out of bed.

Surprisingly, the lightest sleeper in the world, aka my son, didn't wake up at all. He just sighed and sounded like he was rolling over. I remember when I used to be a heavy sleeper. Guess I should call my mom on the way to work this morning - I'm sure she's fine, but she probably got a start.

Working like you just don't care.

The past two days have been surprisingly wonderful and well worth the past few weeks of utter hell. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I like my job. It's challenging. Frequently unfair. Extremely high profile. But it keeps me interested, gives me a chance to work on being more assertive and allows me to look like an expert, even though I frequently don't feel like one.

Still, preparing for this conference (now over!) was killer. But, now that things are successfully concluded and the people who would normally be giving me more work are all on vacation, I have down time, something that hasn't happened for me in about 2 years. So I have time to:

a. leave work early, come home and do stuff. Yay!
b. think about my direction at work - am I ambitious or not? what am I willing to do for advancement?
c. do the stuff that I do have to do really well.

So far I've been taking care of option a more than anything else. I feel that it's well deserved, but this way lies a slippery slope, so after today, I'll have to give it up, organize my desk and my head and work on b and c. Too bad option b is the hardest one of all.

I also need to get back on track once more with my weight loss. I was on the wagon last week, off this week. But the week's not over yet. I'll be working out tonight, tomorrow (hopefully) and Saturday to get in three times this week, then hopefully we'll go back to five times next week. No one ever said this weight loss racket was easy. Grrr...

Well, I'm off to enjoy my final minutes before taking off to pick my son up. We're going to Lowe's to get some dirt (I love to mix hummus with my mulch!), so I should probably change out of the ivory sweater I'm wearing, too. Hmmm... Wonder who I should talk to about creating a box garden for veggies in the back yard?

Kitchen nemeses - conquered.

I did it! I really did it. I managed to make rice krispies treats without burning the crap out of them. Hah! Take that, kitchen nemesis. Take that!

Whew. I feel better.

We have a potato issue here.

I'm a little slap happy from having worked today since 6:30, when I got to our conference site to set up. It doesn't help that I'm sick with an awful sore throat and have had to work at night after Ragsy's gone to bed, too. (Yes, as I said, I caved, but only until after this damn conference is over.) Anyway, the above is a quote from someone earlier today on a walkie-talkie. It was really surreal. I don't think I've ever heard someone talk so seriously about potatoes before. So, day one of the conference is almost done and I'm praying that I don't have to schlep all the way downtown again since I have to pick up my son in about an hour and a half and he'd have to come, too.

Work has been VERY rough the past few days - dry runs in preparation for the conference, updating documents, creating new ones, slide decks, coordinating technology and people. Explaining things to our company's vice president of product management, prepping people so they know what they're talking about and dragging things in and out of my car to and from the hotel downtown. And that's just for my team. There are people in our company who've just done this for more than 500 people in such detail they've been able to provide each attendee with an individualized agenda that tells them what they're up to hour by hour each day! Amazing - managing my team for something like this is like herding cats. I can't imagine having to do that with ten such groups plus an extra 500 guests. Yeesh.

Anyway, if today went well, my job will be more or less done. So I'm waiting with bated breath for 5 p.m. If the news is good, I'll only need to go downtown once more tomorrow - maybe will even only need to call to check in - and I'll get to go home at 2 p.m. Even better, I'm working from home Thursday morning. Given that I was up and out of the house by 5:30 this morning, that sounds like heaven.

Well, off I go. I'm going to watch True Hollywood Story - quality TV - while I wait for 5 to come.

You know things are bad when...

You're afraid to turn off your work laptop because you don't want to come in unprepared the next day. In other words, there are so many damn people from work online and lots of them e-mailing me about a conference next week that I'm managing, so unless I want to be blind-sided in the morning, I'm trapped online like a sad little rat. How freaking pathetic is that? I'm working at 10 p.m. on a Wednesday. Even sadder, so is my husband, who is not even home yet.

I keep telling myself: I like my job, I like my job, I like my job... And it's true and I feel useful so I guess I should get over myself and hope like hell that this doesn't become standard operating procedure. If it does, I may have some work issues to cover with my manager.

Anyway, and I hesitate to write this, it's been a good week all in all. Although things are blowing up right and left at work, I've managed to work out every single day this week so far, my body feels good, tight and more energetic than before and I'm a lot more focused at work thanks to my increased activity. The only downside is that with increased activity comes an increased appetite which isn't easily subdued with fruits and vegetables.

In other words, I had cheezits during the day and ice cream this evening. But during meals I did pretty well - cereal for breakfast, salad for lunch, chili for dinner. I should have cut up some fruits & veggies to take to work to avoid the aforementioned cheezits, but I was too tired last night and completely unmotivated. I don't see myself getting terribly motivated tonight, either, given that I've been working since I put my son to sleep at 8 p.m.

Working while Ragsy's awake unless absolutely necessary is somewhat verboten for both me and my husband. It's not as forbidden when it's just me and my husband, but it's still an "only-if-you-have-to" thing. Hopefully I won't have to for more than another week or so. Same for him.

Anyway, I think I'm going to have to cut myself off from both my laptops in just a few minutes. I have my work laptop sitting on the coffee table with my personal laptop on my lap where it should be. Both are open, both are on and I've been looking at both of them way too much this evening. That's it. I need to go to sleep. So...of I go. No, really.

Okay, here's what we'll do - you go first. Then I'll log off.

Wait, wait wait - that doesn't work. I'll count to three then we'll both log off at the same time, ok? Good. One, two, three!

My fear - realized

So I got in this morning, went to my 8:30 meeting, then when I got out, I started checking e-mail. It was as I feared. The e-mail deluge began at 7:30 Friday night and continued until about 1:30 a.m. this morning, with several requests to be completed no later than Monday at 8:30 a.m. What the hell?

Not only am I not a machine, in addition to our happy, productive weekend, we also had a fairly significant emergency. But even on a regular weekend, if my work is on track while I'm at work and at the time I leave in the evening, it doesn't come home with me. Yeah, I take my laptop and catch up Monday and Wednesday and occasionally on Friday because I leave early to pick up my child. But given that I usually have meetings during lunch and when I don't, I'm working anyway, I don't feel it necessary to hunch over my computer during the precious little free time I have. Even when I leave early, I somehow manage to clock over 50 hours a week.

Anyway, I must confess to some irritation. My work is what I do to pay the bills and to enjoy myself. I like my job - I really do. It provides a lot of mental stimulation and adult company and I meet interesting people. I also get to use skills I have and work on developing those I don't or that I'm deficient in. Sometimes I even feel marginally important.

But if I were to work as much as many of the people in my department, I would find myself out one marriage. I would also have less respect for myself because although I realize I can't and don't dictate my hours in general, I'd like to think I have some sort of control. Ah, well. I'm going to step off my little soapbox. After all, there are meetings to attend. And I will have to work tonight if I keep yakking.

To check or not to check.

So, it's 10 p.m. on Sunday and I have this sinking feeling that when I listen to my cell phone messages tomorrow on my way to work, I'm not going to be happy. I'm preparing our senior directors and VP for a large client-facing conference for which dry runs start on site tomorrow. I wrote the slides and the marketing material and sent them to the presenters and said, "here you go - finish them and run through them. I'll talk to you when you're done." You see, I'm important enough to write the content, but not improtant enough to present, which at this point isn't a bad thing because I don't want to present.

Anyway, the first of the dry runs start tomorrow at 8:30, the same time my Monday morning meetings usually start. I'm not currently planning to be on site for the dry runs because, other than taking notes and telling people where they were inaccurate or need improvement when there will already be a few other people there to do that, I'd probably just network (which is important, but I still have a lot of other crap to write for the same conference). Given that all the presenters were too busy to write their slides and I had to do it, I'm bound to have many questions from them on their material.

Added to that, I haven't checked my work e-mail this weekend thanks to a surprisingly busy and productive weekend; I have also forgotten to even look at my cell phone since Friday. So the question remains: do I check either right now? If I check my phone, I probably shouldn't return phone calls now since it's so late. If I check my e-mail, most of the people I work with are bound to be online (sick, isn't it?), but do I really want to set a precedent that I'll be online every Sunday this late, given that I was e-mailing our VP back and forth at this hour last Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday? Hmmm....

The answer is no. Yes, I'd like a promotion and I think I deserve one. Yes, I think I should be paid more. But no, I do not think that checking e-mail during the weekend and all night is a good idea. It doesn't make me more important or productive - it makes me irritable, it makes me hate my job, lose sleep, incapable of unwinding and it makes me inefficient. Unfortunately, most of the people in my office are under the impression that working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is somehow impressive. Which is probably why I haven't gotten that promotion. Ah, well. If that type of responsibility means being plugged in to something all day every day when I have a toddler and a household and a family, well...it just doesn't fit into my schedule. You know, the one where I stay sane and don't hit someone with a brick.

So, no - I'm not going to do it. I'll regret it tomorrow...big time. Particularly since I did the same thing with my phone last weekend and found calls from one of our directors on Sunday at 7 p.m. Still, I'm going to try and hold out, if only for a little bit longer.

With that in mind...

How long with Andi hold out against the siren song of not having people demand "Didn't you get my e-mail?!?" Monday at 8 a.m.? How long can she stand to be away from her laptop? Is there any hope that she'll be able to stop compulsively reading new legislation? And when will she stop writing about herself in the third person? Perhaps when she is Queen? Stay tuned for...The Life and Times of Andi: Neurotic Nutjob of the Midwest (now with more nuttiness - and salt!).

A rant on development.

On the way home from a friend's house this afternoon, we were all listening to a CD of my son's children's songs. He's really into dancing lately, so if he's in the car or at home, he's usually bopping along to music, either external or internal, or he's singing. Anyway, the words of childhood songs I used to listen to have changed drastically - they've become PC to an almost ridiculous degree. Case in point: the song about the baby bumblebee (I'm picking up a baby bumble bee - won't my mommy be so proud of me?, etc.). For some reason it drives me nuts that they've taken the part out about squashing the bumble bee. I did research to find out why and apparently the creators of the CD are trying to teach sharing, kindness and nonviolence, so any references to squashing a living creature have been removed. Doesn't matter if it's a bug or what - they're gone.

I've also noticed that any music or toy for a toddler or below now has some sort of messaging about its developmental virtues. While I do appreciate that kids need to play for stimulation, all this developmental crap gets old. Really old. Not every moment of my child's life needs to be seen as a developmental opportunity that needs to be capitalized upon. He's not going to be scarred or lose brain cells if I don't work constantly with him to ensure he learns X, Y and Z or talk constantly about sharing.

I'm turning into a curmudgeon. Or perhaps I'm just lazy. Yes, I realize that pre-school is not what it was when I was younger. He's likely going to need to know a lot more than I ever did at his age - he already knows much more than I did. Still, there are some aspects of parenting today that I truly don't appreciate. And this huge emphasis on sugar-sweetness and development of superchildren is one of them. (Okay, it's two of them, but who's counting?)

Oooooohhhhh, gym!

Okay, that's a Ragsy-ism. He seems something he likes, he says a long drawn-out "Oh," then the object label. The most common: "Oooooohhhhh, stick!" Then comes straw, cat, mommy and daddy. Too bad I'm only third. Ah, well. Can't have everything.

My point is, though, that I've gotten access to the cardio room at work (free!), which I hope will go a long way to getting me back on track with the weight loss, which has stalled lately. I lost 26 pounds, got the shingles, lost 5 more, then got a barfing disease, lost an additional 5, and have gained back 7 and counting. It just keeps coming back. And I know why - I'm backsliding into dangerous habits.

First, my mom visited. That meant a large dinner every night, usually with appetizers (stinky cheese & crackers) and dessert plus wine.

Second, my husband happened. He's not a dieter - never has been, probably never will be. He's never had to worry much about his weight and when he does gain weight, he doesn't find it at all troublesome to just eat less and it comes off immediately.

Thirdly, I've hardly exercised. I got sick before my mom visited and couldn't work out. My mom visited and since I work, I didn't want to just leave her by herself if I was around. So I didn't work out. Then Ragsy started getting sick and I still didn't work out.

My clothes aren't getting tigheter...yet. But they will be. So I'm thinking that on days when I don't work out at night, I'll bring my clothes here and do something that won't render me too incredibly sweaty to work but will get my heart rate up, like the elliptical or the bike. That way, I can combine it with my treadmill workouts (which resume tonight) so I'll have a good bit of variety. Now I just have to figure out how to force myself to lift. That's a problem - I've got free weights, but after I run, I'm just not in the mood. I guess I can do them in front of the TV or while I hang out with my husband at night. Hmmm... Tough one.

I also need to change the Weight Watchers plan. I had been on the Flex Plan (the one with the daily allotment of points) and did really well. I thought I'd see how I did on the Core Plan, but since it doesn't have the same daily allotment and instead has a weekly allotment for non-core foods, I've found that I don't manage my intake as well. Mostly because the Flex Plan allows me to fool myself into thinking I've got more points than I really do since the core just has the weekly points, whereas Flex has both daily and weekly "treat" points.

Well, Flex again flex again, jiggity jig. (Hopefully NOT jiggly jiggly...I've still got another 25 pounds to go!)

I hate that jingle.

Ragsy is theoretically napping right now (theoretically because he's so congested he's finding it hard to get comfortable and has already awoken once), so I'm hanging out here, watching TV and typing. And I heard this jingle that I absolutely loathe. I don't even remember what product it's for, but I know it's food because it goes:

Yummy, yummy, yummy
I've got love in my tummy....

It bothers me on a number of levels. One is the gooey sweetness with which it is sung. As you probably know, I've had enough of gooey-ness for the day. Two is that, while I get that it's a completely innocent marketing jingle, it implies that food equals love. I don't like that. I've got enough food issues as it is (as evidenced by the side of my very generous backside which is nonetheless smaller than it was before - thank god) - I don't need an advertisement backing that up. And third and finally (and least important) is that no matter how many times I hear the song, I can't remember what it's for.

Yech.

Yesterday was just one of those days I knew something would happen. So I wasn't all that surprised to get a call. Ragsy smelled a little off but wasn't acting any differently and didn't have a fever, so I assumed it was ok to send him along to daycare. And it was - for about three hours.

Ragsy has pink eye. It's very gross. I ran over to daycare yesterday after they called me and he greeted me with an excited, "Mommy, yay!" while looking like a miniature Quasimodo with goo seeping out of his right eye. Sadly, it's traveled to the other eye already - it took just a matter of hours. Kids are just really yucky. Not in a completely horrible way, but they get really gross really frequently and easily. Plus, the goo and swelling in his eyes made him a little clumsy last night, so he kept falling over, which he found less than fun after the second or third time.

He's on drops now - who would have thought toddlers were so freaking strong and cunning? Getting those things in his eyes is like World War III every time. Anyway, my husband are tag-team parenting again today - he took first shift; I got to work at 7 a.m. and will be on my way home in a couple of hours. I have no idea what to do with him this afternoon. I guess we'll stay home and play - he'll be bored but I don't want to infect other kids. Damn. Everytime he's sick I fantasize about him not being sick and the two of us just enjoying a day at the park. Too bad I only seem to get that extra cuddle time with him when he's runny and gooey and crabby. I need to take some time off. This stinks.