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Full Moons and Safety Glass

Full Moons and Safety Glass
Balancing money, time, self, and family
About AmandaS


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April 14, 2008
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November 15, 2009
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AmandaS - > Full Moons and Safety Glass
When You Wish...
Is it just me, or lately has everyone’s Careful-What-You-Wish-For been showing up and slapping us in the face?

Just yesterday, I got an email from my oldest friend who—having returned to work after the birth of her twins, busted butt at work and landed a promotion—is now struggling to try and strike a balance in her crazier-then-ever daily grind. Of course, she wanted the twins…yes, she wanted the promotion. But, somehow, she now finds herself out of sorts, out of patience, and out of time.

Ah, time. Remember time?

Time was that thing that you used to waste on a Sunday afternoon. You’d get sucked into some kind of Bravo marathon. Or sleep in on a Saturday. Or maybe time was what you set aside for exercise, or getting your brows waxed, or even doing laundry. And now, so many of us are out of shape, with bushy brows, pulling out clothes that aren’t “too dirty” to wear.

In any case…my friend’s email got me thinking about how things I had hoped for are now creating dynamics I never considered. A sort of opportunity cost for wanting this to change, move to the next phase. For example:

I couldn’t wait for my oldest daughter to start talking.  Boy, that seemed like a good idea at time. Well, she started talking at 10 months and she hasn’t shut up since. Seriously. She talks and talks and talks and talks and talks.

I couldn’t wait for my youngest daughter to get out of the organic baby food phase. I was so tired of the trips to Whole Foods, stocking up on jars of food, stressing about carting around extra jars in case they were needed, spending all the money. Now, two years later, all Carmen will actually eat with any vigor is rice, bread, grapes, and Go-gurt.

I couldn’t wait for the girls to get big enough that they actually want to play together. Lucky me, now they do play together. However, with that comes the incessant bickering over toys, arguments that often end with someone getting smacked in the head with Barbie.

My list of “wouldn’t it be great ifs…” for work and marriage could also fill up volumes.  Let’s not get started with those…

However despite all of unexpected challenges, surprising stressors, and lost patience I still feel incredibly lucky. Everyone is happy and healthy. Our house and family is in place and runs with a kind of on-again-off-again harmony.

I just really, really wish that the girls would stop fighting over that stupid Leapster.
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posted by AmandaS on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 09:19 PM
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High, Low and Loose
I have one of those jobs where I have to switch gears constantly. I hardly have time in between meetings to recalibrate leaving me, at times, dazed and confused about what the agenda is for the next meeting. I spend a lot of time in confusion.

I blame the lack of sleep.

Usually at home, the switching of gears is more contained. As nuts as it can get around the house, typically a pattern of predictability in the schizophrenia emerges.

This afternoon, though, I was thrown for a series of loops. Loops of emotional highs and lows and everything in between…and all of these loops took place between 4 and 7 tonight. Nothing too dramatic happened, but there was just enough back and forth that it left me feeling, well, grey. And fuzzy. I feel like an old, grey, tattered sweatshirt. Used up, tired looking, with ketchup stains.

The lows included…
  • Ava got waitlisted at our first choice school for her open enrollment kindergarten for the fall. We have no idea what this means. The cruel form letter we got in the mail today was decidedly low on details, leaving us with no idea how to proceed.
  • I had to suffer through the “Wicked” soundtrack for the millionth time today. Oh, “Wicked” soundtrack…you seemed like such a good idea when you were first downloaded. Now, I have to spend all my commute time in the car with my kids constantly explaining each song and corresponding action to my four year old who is totally confused on the premise of the play. This wouldn’t be so bad, but it occurs every…single…day.
  • Paul and I fought with the girls again at dinner about the fact that they wouldn’t eat their dinner. Seriously, what kid doesn’t want pizza? And, why, why, why can’t the girls get through ONE MEAL without pitching a giant fit?
  • My cranky 14-year-old wiener dog who now has to live with my mom because he bites is staying with us temporarily. This is not the low (although my husband would disagree). The low is that it is now obvious that his back legs are on the verge of failing him. He can’t walk up the stairs on the back deck. It’s really sad. Poor Wiener.
  • Carmen and I got into a fight after I told her that, no, I couldn’t tape her banana back together.

There were some highs…
  • I left work early today to take the girls for desperately-needed haircuts. Both girls look adorable. Carmen got her bob sassed up and Ava’s bang-growing-out experiment is coming along nicely.
  • My twin nieces found out they get to scale back on their physical therapy. This means that their progress is on an awesome trajectory and the end of PT may be close at hand.
  • A really, really old friend found and chatted with me on Facebook. It was totally bizarre. What was amazing about the whole thing was that he and I commiserated about how dorky and awkward we used to be. I don’t feel dorky and awkward at all anymore, in any aspect of my life. Jeez…that only took 25 years.
But the most surreal thing that happened today was that my not-even-five-year-old Ava lost her first tooth.  When she told me on the way into the hair salon that her tooth was loose, I actually panicked. I thought she had hit her face on something and hurt herself. I called the dentist in full-freak out mode. They assured me that although, losing her bottom right tooth at 4 ¾ was early, it was not that unusual for a girl.

So, when Ava came out to the living room 10 minutes ago to show me the tooth in her hand, I couldn’t tell it if this was a low or a high.

I guess her lost tooth was just a reminder that life just keeps moving forward despite all of the kindergarten waitlists, geeky-phases, frustrating meals, and broken bananas.
Topics: emotional rollercoasters
posted by AmandaS on Thursday, March 12, 2009 at 07:33 PM
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