Thanksgiving…I Know I’m a Little Late

The month of November has flown by at record speed. First a hurricane, then Election Day, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving…schools we closed more than they were open. For Thanksgiving we continued our tradition of driving Upstate to my in-laws. Love gets to hunt and my mother-in-law gets to feed us for 3 straight days. I always eat like crap and gain 10 pounds and this year was no different.

What was different was driving from 12:30am to 4am to get there which I have vowed to never do again. I fell asleep at 11:10pm and Love woke me up at 11:50pm. I don’t work well on very little sleep so I was a cranky bitch the whole ride and I kept dozing and then startling myself awake in fear that Love was asleep. When we arrived at 4am Nate woke up and announced that he wasn’t tired anymore. Yay! Great start to the holiday!

Thanksgiving was the usual fried turkey and antipasto salad that I love and of course dessert is always a highlight. I had the most fun this year shooting BB guns with the kids in the backyard. I know that sounds very back woods of me but I was glad my 4-year old shot his first gun with his cousins. My mother was horrified but she doesn’t get how fun it is to shoot at things!

Black Friday is always spent at the mall in Kingston. We have the kid’s picture taken with Santa and then we do some shopping. At some point we hit the food court for lunch and then head to Target as our last stop. The great thing about the mall there is that there are hardly any people. Don’t get me wrong there are a lot of people at the mall but not nearly what you would find at a mall on Long Island. You have to be crazy to go to the malls here or at least have a death wish. Friday night we always have dinner at Angela’s an Italian restaurant close to their house. It’s all you can eat pasta night and for the first time ever my sister-in-law and I had adult beverages with dinner. I actually felt like a grown up! Until my son said my nephew’s pickle was a penis…

Saturday morning we drove home so we could have dinner with my parents and my brother and his family. It felt like the longest day ever and I just wanted to get home and take a nap but instead I quickly got us ready to get back in the car. Dinner and dessert made me so sleepy that I am surprised I made it home before falling asleep.

Sunday we took family photos, ran a few errands and got home at 3pm. I wanted a nap again so badly but instead I started vacuuming and moving furniture in my living room to make room for the Christmas tree. Nate was super excited and I like to put it up the weekend after Thanksgiving because it puts me in a better mood. I love watching TV in the dark with just the tree lit. It reminds me of being a kid and how much simpler life was (not that it felt that way).  I was so happy to finally sit down at 8pm and watch my shows. I like Sunday night to be mommy time because I can watch my shows in peace and drink some wine. It’s a wonderful thing!

Monday it was back to work…more on that at another time…

The Abominable Obama

Friday night Nate and I were at Toys "R" Us to get some Christmas shopping done. As we approached the store he spotted a claw machine with an Iron Man doll in it. He of course said he wanted to see it so on the way out we stopped by to take a look. I am very good at the claw machine and have won some pretty fun stuff in them but I was not getting Nate ANOTHER Iron Man. All of a sudden I spotted a stuffed Obama head with big ears. It was so funny and Nate asked why I was laughing so I replied, "Look at the stuffed Obama head doll." He looked at me and started laughing and said, "The Abominable head!" which made me laugh harder. I explained that it was not the Abominable but Obama, our President. He said, "Yeah, I know that." His standard response to everything lately.

Sunday I decided that we should wrap the kids presents together. I let Nate pick which paper each present got wrapped in and at one point he chose Rudolph paper and asked me to cut him a piece with the Abominable on it. I handed it to him and he said, "We saw him last night in the machine." I started laughing and again explained that we saw Obama the President and not the Abominable. This time he looked at me and said, "Oh yeah, he's white and fluffy right?" Far from it my boy, far from it lol!

Pilates Panic!

Last week life started to get back to normal for all of us. Nate was back at school, I was back at work and getting back to my routine. I was really looking forward to getting back to Pilates because after 2 weeks off I was feeling out of shape. I went to class alone on Tuesday and I found out that today is our instructors last day!

O

M

G

Panic set in as I realized that my beloved Pilates class was no more. My instructor is such a wonderful woman and she pushes us just enough but not too far. I have been feeling so much stronger after the last 3 months and now it might be over. I am hoping that there is a Christmas miracle and that next Tuesday someone will show up to teach the class. I don’t think I can make it through the next month of eating and drinking without Pilates.

I’m trying not to drive myself crazy thinking about it so I have a plan in place. I will take yoga on Mondays and Fridays and try to use my DVD at home to fill in. It won’t be the same but I need to keep doing something at this point. In January I am joining the gym at work so I can use the elliptical for an hour a day but I really had hoped to do that Mondays and Fridays and keep Pilates for Tuesdays and Thursdays and my massage on Wednesdays. For right now I will be thankful that I have Pilates today and a massage tomorrow. I’ll worry about all of this next week after the holiday.

Bad, Bad Mommy

There are so many days that go by where I wish I could have done more…okay almost every single day goes by in the blink of an eye and I never have time to do the things I want to do. As an adult I understand that I have to go to work in order to afford the basic necessities in life. The fact that I understand that logic in no way negates my feelings that I would love to spend more time with my child…well, sometimes.

Let me begin by saying that on a weekday basis I wish I had more time with Nate. We rush around in the morning trying to get out of the house and I always end of yelling at him for something. He is like a slug in the morning and I am on my own to get him out the door and into the car. When I arrive home after work he wants to be on top of me because he missed me all day. I miss him too, but sometimes I have to pee and that’s pretty hard to accomplish with a 4-year old strapped to your neck. The next 2 hours are usually a blur of preparing dinner, eating, arguing over dessert, bath time, getting into pajamas, picking out clothes for the next day and finally laying in my bed together to rest.

Weekends and days off are a whole different story in my house. Nate is usually up between 6:30am and 7:30am (if only he could do this on school days) and is yelling that he has to go potty and then he begins whining for food and a drink. I drag myself out of bed and head to the bathroom with him and then we make our way to the kitchen. I make him something and then crash on the couch hoping that he will leave me alone so I can get another half hour of sleep. This of course rarely happens so instead I try and keep him occupied and I pray that there will be time in the afternoon for a nap.

Basically what this all boils down to is a cranky mommy due to lack of sleep (if only I could fall asleep at 8pm like him I would be fine) and a child who wants all of my attention because daddy is still sleeping since he worked most of the night. We go back and forth about what he wants to do (he likes games but I hate all of the games that we have so I push for coloring or puzzles) and eventually we settle and enjoy each other for a little while. Eventually he starts to whine for food again and gets cranky when I don’t offer what he wants. He will then continue to be cranky and he will at some point yell at me and I will calmly tell him that we do not yell at mama which makes him yell louder and cry harder and I start to lose my shit. Bad. Bad. Mommy.

I hate that it happens but he drives me over the edge with his temper which he inherited from me of course. I don’t curse around him so I just always end up yelling, “I’m done!” and I walk away. He hates that I walk away but I’m not sure what else I can do. He does calm down after a little while when I do that so I figure it’s better than having a screaming match with a 4-year old. Time outs don’t work because he just gets up and runs and after 5 or so times I lose it. I keep telling him there will be consequences and I do take away toys or restrict TV. I feel like I am losing my mind sometimes but I keep telling myself I am not alone. There have to be other mothers experiencing the same thing. Right?

You Laughin' at Me?

The gas situation on Long Island is horrendous. Last week one of my co-workers suggested that four of us car pool. I already drive with Aimee so adding two other people made sense. After I drop Nate at school Aimee and I meet up at a local shopping center and we now head to Westhampton to meet up with the other two ladies. The car rides were filled with stories from the hurricane including my nine days living with my parents and 4-year old.

Marsha is a sweet sixty-something, married, mother of two daughters with a great sense of humor. My co-workers are all fun people and we are like a big family that teases each other about everything. You have to have a certain personality to work with us. Our jobs are all very stressful so we need to be able to laugh throughout the day or we might all be committed.

Marsha came into my office on Friday morning and very seriously told me that she had to tell me something, but that I couldn't laugh. At that moment I knew I would be laughing as soon as the words left her mouth. She went on to say that after a week in the car with me that she thinks that I should be a stand up comedian. Cue the crickets...and the laughter. After six years working together Marsha knows me very well but she has no clue that I have a fear of public speaking. Having a conversation with my friends is very easy for me but writing jokes and standing on a stage in front of strangers is frightening to me.

She yelled at me for laughing (which of course made me laugh more) and said that I have good stories and great delivery. She told me I also have a way with cursing (now THAT is something I can agree with!) and that I am genuinely funny and should consider it. She said I should check out local comedy clubs and perform at an open mic night because a lot of the comedians are bad. All I could think was, "I would be the bad comic!!!"

I obviously am very flattered by her comments and am glad that someone enjoys my stories. I thought about it all weekend and I still get a kick out of it. I know that people laugh when I tell stories which makes me happy but I honestly never thought of being a comedian. I love to watch comedy specials and funny shows and movies but never thought of myself on one. Look at me getting ahead of myself now...someone tells me I'm funny and I'm imagining myself with an HBO special! I will continue to think about it and maybe I'll even start writing some material. You never know where life will take you.

Sandy Sucks!

Last week Hurricane Sandy blew through New York and left a huge path of destruction. Please be warned that I am going to whine about my situation a little, but know that I am so grateful that no one I know was injured or killed, or lost their home. I feel terrible for all of the people who lost everything.

I had to work an event a few weeks ago so I decided to take my day off on Friday, October 26^th so we could go pumpkin picking since we were expecting a storm the next Monday.  At first it was just predicted that it would be rain, then it turned to a tropical storm and finally a hurricane. By Saturday my mother was calling and telling me to stay at her house on Sunday because the storm was going to be bad. She continued to plead with me Sunday even sending an email instead of calling. To which I called her and told her to stop since we spent 3 days at her house last summer for Hurricane Irene.

I watched the weather reports Sunday and realized that the storm would be bad so we prepared as best we could. Love gassed up all three cars and prepared his apocalyptic survival kit and I packed clothes for Nate and me while finishing laundry. Love wondered why I was packing clothes and I wondered why he was packing a flint and a folding saw. It was a hurricane coming, not the end of the world.

By Monday morning the news was getting worse about the storm and it looked as though we might be evacuated. I let Nate play on the computer while I cooked some food that we could still eat if we lost power for a day or two. Then I decided to catch up on my DVR in case we lost power and cable for a few days. At 12:30pm we found out that portions of our neighborhood were being evacuated and we fell into one by just 2 blocks. I called my mother and told her to expect us in an hour. We finished packing enough clothes and toys for 2 days and headed to my parent’s house.

The hurricane was bad but it wasn’t terrible in my parent’s neighborhood. There were downed trees and telephone poles and sections of fence knocked over but there was no flooding and they never lost power. My neighborhood did not fare so well. Love and my father went to check on the house Tuesday morning. We had a tree from our neighbor’s yard fall across the street and it took down his power lines with it and was resting on our power lines. Our cable was also disconnected from our house and we had one tree split in half.  Our whole block was huge trees snapped in half and down across the street. It was a huge mess and of course we had no power.

I’m not going to go into detail about the whole week because it was a complete blur to be honest and not much went on. I stayed home from work all week since Nate didn’t have school so we took him shopping to get out of the house some days, we trick or treated with our friends and their kids, Thursday he was sick so we took him to the doctor (ear infection), Saturday we had a birthday party to go to, and Monday Nate went back to school and I went back to work. We FINALLY got power back last night so I stopped by the house after work to turn on the burner and vote before going to my parent’s for one final night. It was a very long 9 days at their house and I really wanted to go home but we had to eat dinner and then I had to pack all of our stuff so it made more sense to just sleep there one more night. I am very lucky that my parent’s are so close and so willing to let us stay with them. It’s not the ideal situation for anyone but I can’t complain because there are so many people who are really suffering. I am just happy to be going home tonight to my warm house to sleep in my bed!