The week in review

I know, I know – you all are probably going into some sort of shock at this point due to the fact that I am actually posting more than once in a given month. Or a given 2 months for that matter. But fear not intrepid reader, I have re-committed myself to all things blog-tastic and so on we go….

My first thought, why are short weeks always the longest weeks? With Monday being the holiday it just sorta set the whole thing off-kilter a little bit. Didn’t help that I didn’t get nearly as much done on Monday as I wanted to.

You see, as I mentioned we have begun operation Downgrade to Upgrade. So while some would argue that our new place is still a good size place, it is in fact smaller than what we had. By a considerable amount. And in all fairness, the house we were in was pretty effin’ ginourmous for a family of 3. So we have thrown away (2 trips to the city dump). We have Salvo’d – I am sure the many t-shirts we gave away will find a good home. And thrown away more. And yet, my house is still a cluster of the few remaining boxes we are not sure what to do with, more t-shirts and assorted crap than I thought two people could reasonably accumulate in a 12 month time span. Like I think the crap has spawned mini-crap. T-shirts are giving birth to other shirts I have NEVER seen before. How does this happen? Still noodling over that one – not sure I will come to any surefire conclusions on that one. However, once that all gets settled we will move on to Operation Family Budget -- now THAT should be a riot. Details later on that one.

Technology 101
I think it is fair to say that I am a little bit of a techie geek. I don’t necessarily have all the gadgets, etc but I do in fact envy those that do. One area that I have always been willing to spend a little extra on is my cell phone.

We don’t have a home phone – got rid of that years ago when it became readily apparent that only telemarketers called it. And I have had a pretty nice phone for the last year plus, but I have really been craving that new Palm Pre. My sister got one right when they came out and I am more than a little jealous. Silly really to crave after something as trivial as a phone, but little materialistic ole’ me can’t help herself.

Last Friday night, my phone sorta stopped working. And by sorta, I mean it stopped working. The screen just went *poof* and that was that. Saturday morning then had me high-tailing it to the cell phone store to figure it all out. Had to get the insurance claim filed for the old phone. They gave me a temporary phone (circa 1998 or something) to use in the iterim and off we went. Now – keep in mind I had no contacts in the temp phone and I was going from a full QWERTY keypad back to the T9 type keypad. And I am a texter – so this hurt. And no, I am not some 12 year old that sends like 5,000 messages a month or anything, but I do a fair share. Probably more than a fair share. Suffice it to say, it set me back a little bit. New phone arrived on Tuesday, so I spent Wednesday at the cell phone store AGAIN to get the loaner phone returned (so long 1998) and get my contacts moved from old broken phone to new shiny next-generation version of same phone.
With one teeny-weeny little snafu.
Seems they couldn’t pull my contacts off the old phone. Says helpful cell-phone sales person, “well you can just pull them off your PC, You do sync your phone with your PC don’t you?” And as he is saying this the self-righteous, I-told-you-so look is starting to permeate his visage.
Me: “Erm, no.”
Queue the angel of death, the knells of the final bells and enter the grim reaper.
You guessed it boys and girls – no contacts for Meghan. And we are talking like, 1.5 years worth of numbers. And I know I am prone to exaggeration, but I am thinking easily 200+ numbers. I don’t even know my Dad’s cell phone number for Pete’s sake. That’s how dependent I have become on my contact list. Of course, I got equally self-righteous back .
Me: “Well, if you offered online back up like other providers did, this wouldn’t be a problem. Maybe I should look into another service provider” The guy just looks at me and with total confidence informs me that no provider can back up smart phones. You have to sync them to a PC. Now this may or may not be true, but he was convincing. I wasn’t however convinced that there was NO way to pull those contacts off the phone, so I went to another store and asked them the same thing. The tech there proceeded to Frankenstein my phone into like, 8 pieces and rebuild it with like 16 parts of other phones and alas – we reached the same end result.

The phone wasn’t mostly dead, wasn’t in Davy Jones locker, wasn’t in limbo or any other purgatory like ethereal plane. This baby was D-E-A-D. Full stop. No ifs, ands or buts about it.

The moral of this story boys and girls, is back your shit up. Not in a back that ass up sorta way, nope – get the contacts on a computer, iPod, something, anything that will prevent you from having to send out the “I’m an idiot” email to your entire inbox.

Little Leprechaun Update: He is awesome. Really. Cute as hell. Funny as all get out – and we totally dig him. I should have a link to some new 6 month pictures here shortly. I think they might get me nominated for Mom of the Year or something, stay tuned.

And for your Debbie Downer portion of your programming…
Tuesday marked the 2 year anniversary of my mom’s death. Which is crazy for any number of reasons. I expect there will come a time when it isn’t such a HUGE deal and starts to become another day. Or maybe not. I can still remember every detail of that day. And at the same time sometimes it seems like it was SO long ago. I have said this before, its never the big things that trigger the sadness. Its always the little one. Big days like Christmas, Mothers Day, Tuesday… you are sorta prepping yourself in advance for those. So you manage to insulate a little bit. It doesn’t make them any easier – but I remind myself that in fact the world has continued to revolve. There are good (or great) things in my life and in fact, life does go on. But you still are a little sad, and more than a little glad when the day is over. Thanks to Beth for the offering of ice cream and wine to help the night along. And Joe for just being Joe. Also got the nicest note from Joe’s dad. I have to say, for as sad as it is – you have to celebrate the amazing people that are still in your life and that support us every day. We would be nowhere without them. And I can still hear my mom’s voice telling me to make the most of it and live my life. I still miss her. Every day. Not sure that will ever get any easier.
Deep, cleansing breath
Moving on. I think that about gets us current on this Friday afternoon. I am off to the East coast next week for work. Boys will be running solo, so stop on by and say Hi if you are so inclined. I am sure Joe will want the company. And now I have to go. Its food day at the office and its easily been 30 minutes since I have taken a lap around the buffet offerings.
Now Listening: To my iPod on shuffle – moving to Big Head Todd & The Monsters

Bass-Ackwards

Hello out there intrepid reader. I know, I know. Its been WAAAY too long since I have posted. And what you ask, has kept me from the keyboard and any relevant updates on this redheads world?

Trading gossip quips with Perez Hilton?
Snark-fest 09’ with Chelsea Lately?
Pilgrimage to LA for MJ’s funeral?
Lounging on the tropical shores of Ibiza with a cocktail in one hand and an attentive pool boy massaging the other one?

Nope – dear reader (or whomever of you out there just might stumble across this post), I have spent the summer in the hum-drum Midwest – nary an ocean or pool boy in sight. Hardly even a big puddle. And what has filled my halcyon summer days here in fly-over country? Work, work, kid, work, the occasional wedding and more work and kid. Yes, the mighty have fallen and they have fallen hard. I have managed an occasional night out or on the porch with a bottle of my favorite grape juice in hand. The only problem with those nights stems from parental rule #82(d) – you can go to bed at 9:30 PM , the kid gets up at 6:30 AM. You can go to bed at 11:15 PM, the kids gets up at 6:30 AM. You can go to bed at 3:00 AM because well, you really needed that 5th bottle of wine and you haven’t looked that sexy in a really long time and – you guessed it – kid doesn’t give a rats ass how sexy you thought you looked at 2:45 AM and gets up at 6:30 AM. This means that the evening out theory has shifted just a smidge. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, just another in the multitude of adjustments a mini-me brings to the table.

So what else is new in my little corner of the world? Well, I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to major life events, we (Joe & I collectively) do things backwards. Like, Bass-Ackwards. I believe there is a somewhat agreed upon order in which your average adult does things. It goes something roughly like this

You meet.
You date.
You fall in love.
You get engaged.
You get married.
You move in together.
You spend a few years in wedded bliss.
You get in a family way
You buy a big house and live happily ever after.

I think you can probably move the “move-in together” portion of programming up a few rungs depending on the situation, but all in all that is how its suppose to be. According to whatever ruling body is in charge of these types of things.

Here is how we do it….
You meet.
You don’t date for like 8 months, you just dance around it.
You finally start “dating” after a serious make out session at a friends after-hours party.
You date for about 7 months officially.
You break up.
You keep seeing each other for oh, a year or so. Even though you are not together.
You discover one day that you are pregnant.
You then decide to move into together.
You have a kid.
You then decide that you moved into a house that was way too big for you at this point.
You downsize so at some point you can buy a house.
You set up savings to buy a house.
And that is as far as we have gotten.

So somewhere in there we will buy the house, oh and we might get married. Eventually. You see where I am going with this? Ass-backwards. It’s like we take all the things in the first list, threw them into a hat and then just pick them out at random. But dammit, we are going to get our happily ever after, just in a round-about sorta way. Details right? Just goes to prove, the best laid plans….

In the little leprechaun department, we are getting really big (7 months) have 2 teeth, sit up on our own, crawl/lunge after anything resembling electronics (the remote, the cell phone) and have plenty of personality to go with all that. Still not sleeping through the night. Not sure we are ever gonna get that one in check. And its not that he is up all night just screaming his head off. No, he is just up. Chatting to whomever will listen and wanting to play. Yep – play. At 3 AM. Its one of those falsehoods of parenting. They make that first few months just sound awful and then there is supposed to be this mystical, magical point when **poof** it all just comes together and the family is smiley and full of well-rested goodness.

Reality check: not so much. You get over the newborn stage and then you hit a growth spurt or two, then the teething kicks in, then another growth spurt. Have I convinced you all to go out and have like, 5 kids yet? Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I really don’t remember much of my life before he came along. Seems like I was doing things that I thought at the time were important, but realize now not so much. That’s not to say I wouldn’t love a crazy night out and more importantly the ability to sleep in the next day, but the parenting gig is pretty freakin’ awesome.

So there it is. My first foray back into the blog-sphere. Wasn't that painful at all. Just like ripping that band-aid off. Just gotta do it. Here's hoping there are a few of you out there still reading. I am gonna keep writing.

Now Listening: Vol I by She&Him

Fathers Day 101

Make sure you get the gifts ordered on time from the online store.
Make sure you get cards ahead of time to have a remote chance at one that isn't either DUMB or too sappy.
Don't forget gift wrap for the ONE gift you did manage to get ahead of time.

These are a few of the things that I learned this weekend. We had a really great time. I will get the pictures downloaded sometime this week. I will say this though...
It was HOT
As HELL
HOT, HOT and HOT
Oh, and thank goodness we managed to get seats in the shade. Joe had a blast, even though the Royals lost. We saw Pujols hit a grand slam and ANOTHER home run before I left at the 7th inning.
Finn hung in there all things considered. It was, as I mentioned, HOT. But it was the noise of all the people that caused more issue than anything.
All in all a great first fathers day weekend.
Oh -- and one other thing that I learned (re-confirmed?) -- they say you should dress age appropriately. Which for the most part, I agree with. But I have never heard anyone say you should hair style age-appropriate.
But you should. Trust me. If you are 50+ years old, pig tails should be off limits.
Always.

Now Listening: To Finn scream. Good times.

I am alive

Its true.
Alive and well. Well, depends on your definition of well.
We have been all over the map and back in the last, oh shit -- month since I have posted.
That is the first time I have actually looked at the last post date. I keep telling myself I need to update the blog.
My intentions dear reader ( I dare not assume that there are multiples of you still out there) are sincere.
Its just the falling asleep watching the Daily Show every night should give you some sense of where my priorities are lying these days.
Lets see. Of course, we have pictures of the little dude. See the Flickr site for updates. We went to a wedding over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago. Had a great time. Finn got into a pool for the first time. I think he did ok. However, it was indoors but not heated, so he only lasted about 5 minutes in the water with Dad. But he did well. We did manage to get a little partying in during the reception. Big thanks to Grandpa and Grandma for taking the little dude off our hands for a few hours of baby-free adult time.
Hell, I even went to after-hours in one of the rooms. Do you have ANY idea how long its been since I did that? Or woke up the next morning in a bit of a haze. Sat up, thought about it. And decided that in fact, I DID have a headache and it was brought on from the booze the night before.
Yep - got a little bit of my big girl pants back.
Woot woot.

Also had to go out East for a few days for work. It was both slightly traumatic and totally welcome. Leaving the boys for 4 days was not my idea, but once I got out there a few things caused the a-ha moment.
--I got to sleep all night through (minus one alarm a night for some mom-cow duties)
--I got to sleep all night in a KING bed by myself.
--I got to go out for drinks after work with friends and didn't have to worry about just having one or getting home or anything for that matter.
Upon reading those, it dawns on me that in fact, I am really lame. I say this because I was excited about each of those things. In a big way.
Sad. The whole trip was of course made more traumatic due to the aforementioned mom-cowness. I wasn't about to stop breastfeeding for a business trip, so I told them I would only be able to go if I was ok to get all the milk back. 4 days of liquid gold doesn't go wasted in my book. I sent smoke signals out to all my moms--in-the-know -- with the no-liquid ban in place at airports, could I travel with my pump? Could I bring it back in my checked luggage? And my moms in the know came back in fine style. See they have this thing called the Internet, so my ever judicious, intelligent Julie looked up on TSA's website to see what the scoop was...

And here is what it said:

Now, a mother flying without her child will be able to bring breast milk through
the checkpoint, provided it is declared prior to screening.

I thinks to meself, good work on ya'. All set to go. Except that the general TSA guidelines didn't include Captain American TSA Agent at the DSM Airport. Yes, the Des Moines Airport. Not O'Hare, not Baltimore - little 3rd Tier Des Moines. So I get to the airport at 7 Am for my 8 AM flight. Had just fed Finn right before I got dropped off. Checked in. Paid my extra $$ to check my luggage (the whole flying as a convenience rant will come later) and head towards security. Take off my shoes, pull the laptop from the carrying case and drop the pump through the machine. I see the belt stop. reverse and I can tell they are looking at something. So I say, its a breast pump. Enter Captain America. He starts pulling stuff out of the bag and I say again -- its a breast pump. Keep in mind, I don't actually have any LIQUID in the damn thing at this point. And its the LIQUID that is the banned substance. So he digs around and pulls out the thermal container with the icepack and the empty bottles. He says to me "where is the infant?" I respond with a "no baby, its a business trip. But I checked your website and it said I could travel without the infant as long as I declared the milk". And then he says to me, "the bottles are empty" No shit sherlock, I haven't actually pumped anything yet as its 7:10 in the morning. And then he tells me that its not the bottles (shocker -- again EMPTY), its the icepack. He goes on to say that minus any milk to keep cold, he can't justify the ice pack. So he says "I'm going to have to throw this away" Whoa. Throw on the breaks there Mr I-Would-Waterboard-A-Terrorist-With-Your-Breast-Milk-If-There-Was-Any-In-The-Bottles. See, that icepack came with the pump. Its hard plastic, designed to fit the insulated case and the 4 bottles, so you aren’t throwing crap away. Unless you are gonna pony up the $300 for a new pump. So as the thought of just whipping out a boob and squirting him in the eye with milk floated through my head, I ask – “Not going to throw it away. What are my options?” He goes on the explain that he needs milk in the bottles. Which leaves me with one option; Pump away. He then escorts me back through the security line and tells me when I come back through to pull all the individual components out for the x-ray machine and that I will be subject to a full search. At this point let me remind you of a few things:
1. I did exactly what their own website said – declared the milk (or lack thereof)
2. Its 7:10 AM and I have JUST fed my kid. For those of you not familiar with ins and outs of milk production, you normally have to wait a little bit –at least an hour in my case – to fill the coffers back up so to speak.
3. I haven’t had a DROP of caffeine because I can’t bring any freakin’ liquids through the security check.
All this makes for one very not happy Meghan. So I go trotting off to the bathroom to pump, because the DSM Airport was built in like, 1963 and the concept of a nursing room is way outta their league. Get to the bathroom and discover what was nagging me from the minute I left the security area. There is no plug anywhere with a modicum of privacy. Don’t get me wrong. I feed Finn in public. But when you do that the kid provides a decent amount of coverage. And he works one side at a time. When you pump – well, I am not exaggerating too much when I say Mom-cow. Think waaay scaled down version of a milking machine. Both at once. And you see why you want a door or something. So I go to the bookstore and pay like $30 for some batteries. And go back and get to work. And only churn out like, 2 oz of the goods. As I am packing everything back up, I am thinking to myself, if he says ANYTHING about the amount, I will in fact go totally postal on him. So I head back up and in the course of everything, Captain America’s line had closed. I then got into the other line. Pulled everything out as instructed and waited for them to grab me for the additional screening. As it is all coming out of the x-ray machine, the woman comes around from the screen and I am like, ok – be patient and nice. And she says to me – “You know, you don’t have to pull all that stuff out of the bag. I know some people get sensitive about the breast milk.” At this point, I about hit the roof. No hassle, no impending doom. Just trying to be nice to a nursing mother. I then – rather curtly – say “Can you PLEASE share that with that guy?” And point out Captain America wasting our tax dollars on his coffee break over near the other now-closed line. She sorta apologized and I went on my way.
UGH and UGH. Morale of the Story: Always look for the woman security checker at any 3rd Tier Market airport you might be traveling to. Oh – and pour some milk (of any variety) into your bottles if you are breastfeeding and flying.
The rest of the trip was singularly uneventful. I returned home and both Joe and Finn were still in good shape. I will say, I was really glad to be gone for a few days, but I was totally ready to come home.
What for else has been happening here in the land of milk and honey? Got another year older.
Boo on that. Well, not really boo. Just sorta – meh. We are heading down to KC this weekend for Fathers Day. Gonna go see a baseball game and do some BBQ’ing with both families. Really excited about that. Of course, now I have to get many Father’s Day gifts. My dad, Joe, Joe’s Dad – my Fathers Day budget just tripled. Oh well, its all for a good reason.

Work is currently HIGH stress. Not the actual work itself. While I was out on my trip to Baltimore, I got a call from our Director informing us that the contract that currently funds oh, 99.8% of my work was being cut by 30% across the board. There were immediate lay-offs and more are in the works. So everyone around here is super tense, not knowing if they are going to lose their job and taking lots of sick days all the sudden. Makes for a real stress-free work place.
Or not.

Now Listening: A New Day at Midnight by David Gray