Chore

My least favorite "chore" is putting away clean laundry. I think it's because I have no closet space and everything is like crammed into my closet(s) (I've taken over 3 closets in the house).

Off to it...

TV Dads

Other than the sexual stuff (obviously), I'm the husband and J's the wife.

For example. It's Friday night. We ain't got nowhere to be (although next Friday we do have plans which is like unprecedented. And, to our defense, we're going to a hipster bbq tomorrow afternoon. Oh, and we drink a lot of wine, which must earn us a few extra points on the "cool parents" scale). J asks what I want for dinner (he cooks every night while I hold Monkey). I had just eaten a sandwich bc I couldn't wait. J tells me he'll wait to eat until I'm hungry again. He has this thing about eating dinner together at the table (which is totally adorable, I admit, but after a long day, there's just something about zoning out in front of the TV (usually That 70's Show, Seinfeld, or The Office reruns) while eating your dinner on the coffee table. It's what we did every night until we moved here (bc we had no table)).

ANYWAY, 2 hours later, I was hungry. J asked what I wanted. I told him guacamole and ice cream. He says exactly what my Mr. Cleaver or Bill Cosby or some other TV dad would say, "That's not dinner." I'm like, "We're adults. We can eat what we want." When my parents divorced I was 3. My dad lived in an apartment in the same town. We'd go over there and eat large pieces of chocolate layer cake with a glass of milk for breakfast. Or Swiss Cake Rolls. Or donuts. How Adam Sandler is that?

But J clearly isn't as free-spirited as my crazy self (note my sarcasm). He made us sausage and peppers. We ate at the table. Without the TV. On Williams-Sonoma dishes we got from our wedding. We used to be 2 frat guys living together, but we've found our way into pseudo-domestication.

But other than adding living things to our family, the domestication stuff really is all J. The dogs were my idea and while J gave the baby thing the go-ahead, I was the one w the balls to just not think about the consequences of actually procreating and stopped taking my pill. For the record- the consequences of having a baby are that you (a) think eating ice cream for dinner is crazy; (b) sympathize with other parents and like all children more than you used to; and (c) are crazy-obsessed with a little person.

Speaking of little person, Happy 4 month Bday Monkey!! Mama will never let you read this blog. Just say no to drugs. You're not getting a car when you're 16. And if I catch you underage drinking even 1 time, you're grounded forever. Oh, and you're not going to Aruba for your senior trip. In fact, you're not going anywhere. But I want to thank you for making the lowest parts of my life worth it. Broken hearts, pre-teen acne.... and everything about puberty & awkwardness, that b*tchy whore I got stuck sitting across from in 10th grade lunch, that fight in 7th grade where I lost all my friends for a summer and then had to deal w prank phone calls for months, having to live with my step-dad, my grandpa dying, losing that job at Ryan's Pub and then being physically sick with worry about how I was going to afford my NY apt during my last semester of undergrad, the illness and subsequent death of childhood pets, girl-fights in elementary school, depressing dates after which I never thought I'd find the one, that horrible grade in law school, being so pathetically and unhappily broke after graduating from undergrad, every hurtful thing that anyone has ever said to me. You made every moment of that suffering worth it. Every moment.

Work and... No Work

Before law school I worked as a receptionist for a dull office at a university. The worst aspect of my job was my biotch of a micro-managing boss. How do you micro-manage someone who has no work to do? The 2nd worst aspect of my job was having NOTHING. TO. DO. What I loved about working in the law (up until this point- during the summers) was that I was fully engaged in my work while at work.

Today I had a flashback of what it was like to sit at a desk in front of a computer for a full day with nothing to do. I felt like I had been sitting there for WEEKS. I was the opposite of energized at the end of the day. I hope that my days like that are few and far between because they certainly are discouraging! Yesterday I was nice & busy and my day flew by.

Today I was paid to select Monkey's christening gown. I was leaning towards this more casual gown below (I think the ole' baptism is happening in late summer):

But J wanted something more formal. So I picked this one (sans bonnet):

Yeaaah. Anyway, we're meeting with the priest tonight to set the details.

Don't you shudder at the thought of your superiors at work checking out your internet history? I mean, it's not like I'm sitting there looking at porn, but they'd certainly get the impression that I wasn't working. Which... today... I wasn't. But that wasn't my fault! I would have loved to have done work! I don't have the balls to blog while at work. I mean, that's basically handing them a reason to fire my a$$ on a silver platter.

Update

Hi! I'm alive. I've been meaning to write but when I get home, Monkey's usually sleepy which means she's more demanding of me- specifically of my arms. She wants to be hauled everywhere.

Speaking of, she'll be 4 months this Friday. I can't believe it.

The drainage pipe in our house- I think the only one? Maybe not the only one, but it's big. And it's leaking, which totally sucks bc it'll be a million dollars. I can handle the expense, but it stresses J out. So he deals with it by learning as much about the problem as possible. The unfortunate part is that, in turn, he wants to teach ME about every possible scenario. I'm interested in a lot of stuff, but plumbing ain't one of 'em. I'd rather throw a bunch of money at the problem and never talk about it again.

So we have plumbing people coming tomorrow. And we know the plumber. And he'll be in our master bathroom. This means I have a lot of cleaning to do this evening.

Jesus's son was "dedicated" (a baptism for you non-evangelicals out there) on Sunday. The ceremony was just like in my dreams. Church in a gym, the minister on stage with a mic, a rock band, and in the dead center was an enormous cross with a spotlight on it. J refused to give offering for fear that it would end up in the hands of an evangelical politician. Smart man.

Minority

While female lawyers are plentiful, my firm employs very few female attorneys with children and my actual office only has one- and she works only part-time. While I was a minority as a plain old woman, I didn't feel like it. Now, I feel like it. If you don't have children, you can stay late, travel with more freedom and generally wh*re yourself out to your firm (and firms traditionally take advantage of this promiscuity). But once you got kids, you can't whore yourself out. Female lawyers without kids are not overall sympathetic to the plight of women with kids. In fact, I question whether it's even possible for the type of b*tch who goes to law school to even relate (or want to relate) to someone with kids. I know I didn't.

The law is largely filled with insanely hard-working people who put everything on hold for their careers. ESPECIALLY at large law firms (which is where I'm employed).

So, I dunno, I love leaving at 5:15 to see Monkey. And if I wasn't allowed, I'd quit. Simple as that. But leaving at 5:15 stresses me out. Because I know not a single other associate has left yet or will be leaving for at least another 45 mnutes-1.15 hours (my firm is pretty laid back as far as big firms go). I hate when attorneys see me leaving. I feel guilty, unworthy of the job, etc... even though not a single bit of my work product has been pawned off on someone else or anything but perfect. But I'm blazing trails in this office, yo. The first full-time female associate to have kids in that office. And being the first totally sucks. I know I'm not suffering the plight of a black person or someone who is physically disabled, but at my lowest moments, it feels like it. And at around 3:00pm this afternoon, I was having a low moment. Woe is me. I wish my chosen profession wasn't filled with a$$holes.

Milestone

Today, May 3, 2010, Monkey reached out and grabbed a rattle from my hands. I cheered as if she was accepted into Harvard. Despite that my golden retriever can "reach," it doesn't change how proud I am! I've been waiting for this for months.

How sweet is this deal: Good SIL (Good SIL & her husband are loaded, btw). They hired a night nurse to take care of nighttime feedings for their new baby. It was the first time in quite awhile that I felt pure envy. At this point I'm used to waking up at night and secretly enjoy the time I get to spend with her. She only wakes up once, if at all, these days. In the beginning (a whole 3.5 months ago) being able to sleep for longer than 3 hours probably would've made me feel a lot more sane. They work really, really hard for their money, though. So they both totally earned this luxury. I've always erred towards the lazy side of the fence.

May I reminisce on "the worst," though? The worst = waking up with full & leaking boobs and a baby who drinks too slowly from one boob. And the other one is starting to leak more and more. Ahhh, memories. For the next kid, I don't think I'm going to breastfeed at all. J randomly said to me last week, 'Ya know. For our next child, don't feel guilty if you don't breastfeed. I like using formula.' Thanks, husband. I truly could not ask for a better Mother's Day gift. Except for maybe a night nurse.

Unfortunately for Me

Evil SIL is returning to her hometown (my current town) for 2 weeks beginning next Saturday. She took a leave of absence from her job bc she's really stressed out & had an epileptic seizure. She's had epilepsy forever & it's like this huge family secret. My old roommate in NYC had epilepsy & it was no big deal (I mean, yeah, it was a serious medical condition, but it wasn't a secret). But with regard to Evil SIL- not the case. I guess my in-laws told her when she was little not to tell anyone & it would be "their little secret." So she grew up with this enormous sense of shame surrounding the illness. So, if you see J around town, do NOT mention his sister's illness. Bc he gets all weird about it too.

Anyway, onto ME (hehe, jk). I'm bummed at the prospect of seeing her. I thought I was free until Thanksgiving.