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Movers, shakers.

by Myg on January 6, 2010

Sit STILL!

Do you know how many drafts of unfinished blog posts I have sitting in my wordpress dash? Three hundred fourty eleven. Truth be told, I don’t even know, but it’s a lot.  I’ve had a lot to say, but as yet have been unable to say it. Therefore, a bullets post.

  • Dude, you have no idea how busy I’ve been, what with the show, the holidays, a crazy amount of work to finish by year’s end and all that parenting stuff. You probably do know, but you may not know what an added layer of insanity the show was. I’m talking about being up every night until 1am or so practicing my guitar through headphones so I could possibly not suck after not playing for so long. The sleep deprivation reminded me of how much I need sleep to not just be an asshole to everyone. Up until 1am is not so bad until you remember your kids are up at 7am every day, NO MATTER WHAT, unless it’s today and they’re up at 6 for no god damned reason. And I know – we are lucky that our kids sleep like this. The question is, are we stupid for playing a show when we have no time to play our guitars?
  • Stupid or not, here we come.
  • I don’t know what that means in terms of us playing future shows. Don’t read into it.
  • …
  • Do you see that picture above? Those monsters are my sons, Doot and Bing. They will be a year old on the 22nd of this month. I cringe when I think of it. They are SO BIG (\0/). 
  • Every day I whisper quietly into their soft hair, “Can you stay my baby just a little while longer? Please?” I try not to say it audibly most of the time because I don’t want them to grow up with a complex. I don’t *really* want a 35 year old Doot and/or Bing living with me or off me. Okay, that’s a lie. I secretly dream of having my kids live with me forever and that at least one of them will get some girl pregnant in high school so I can marvel at a grandbaby while I can still walk without a cane. I’m actually not even sure if I’m kidding about that.
  • That’s fucked up.
  • Doot has 8 teeth. Bing has 2 and a half.
  • They eat EVERYTHING. They are great eaters. Messy as shit though.
  • This post is so ”eh” right now I’m going blind.
  • Fuck it, I’m posting it anyway.

It was nice to see you again. Thanks for reading.

Oh, and a little PS bullet, that has nothing to do with this post.

  • To my friend, Ms. Snarkier Than You over at Twitarded, OH MY GOD. I’m incredulously doped up on Twilight (the book). I made Alex (Mr. Wisermom) go out and buy me New Moon last night (which I haven’t seen yet, even though some innocent yet asshatish youngster told me the ending yesterday when she saw I was reading Twilight. Doh!) because I was getting too close to the end and, ugh, how can I be sagaless? As soon as I post this, I’m closing my office door and busting out New Moon. I need some “me” time.

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Fuck it

by Myg on December 30, 2009

That’s not to say there’s any kind of real problem here, just that my head is confused and this cold virus isn’t helping me at all.

Have you ever sat on a cusp, like a major teetering point in what could be construed as the very essence of the meaning of your existence?

That’s what I’m doing right about now.

There’s just so much to think about, and all I *really* want to do is crawl into bed with a trashy novel (I’m waiting, Ms. StY, for my copy of Twilight. I may just have Mr. Wisermom go out and buy it for me.) Since I don’t have a trashy novel, or rather THE trashy novel I want, I’ll just go off a bit.

See, I had this dream when I was young and then I killed it dead. And then years passed and I became a Mom and all was well excepting the fact that I had to keep working in a career I no longer felt committed to, but I could do that because my kids needed diapers and a roof over their heads.

And then I got asked to go back in time, and I did, and I didn’t have that dream again, not the same way, but, then, well, I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back to this present, just the way it is. I didn’t want to stop doing the thing that had always kept me who I was. Because without doing that thing, I was somehow a more hollow version of who I am. I thought maybe that was just age, and I don’t know – maybe it is. But I’m not having it, either way.

So now I’ve got all this other shit to figure out, like, what on earth does it mean? How can I keep a roof over our heads, be present with my kids when I’m not out trying to earn money, and then have anything left over to create something out of nothing, and what will I do with it then?

And on and so on, there are more paths for the future that are beginning to look viable, and I am utterly unsure which one to push forward on.

Fuck it.

I’m going to bed.

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And then, and then…

by Myg on November 30, 2009

IMG_5467

And then the next thing you know, WOOSH. They’re graduating from college and you’re out your retirement fund.

I should really be calling this post a placeholder. It’s holding the place for a lot of things I need to tell you about. Like, the fact that the boys turned 9 months old. And then, about 15 minutes after we ordered their 9 month old commemorative plates and matching cup set, they turned 10 months old. And then they had their first Thanksgiving and their first bath in the big bath tub together. And then I cried because they are too adorable and too sweet to believe and I’m still not home with them every day like I should be and I know, and you know, kindergarten is right around the corner and what then? What THEN?

I know there are women out there who are okay with being working mothers. I salute them. I’m just not one of them. Meaning, I am a working mother. In fact, I am the sole provider working mother right now. But I’m not okay with it, other than the fact that it is what is and I have to be okay, in the most general of terms.

I also have to tell you about the band. Oh lord, the band. That’d be my band, whose name shall not be mentioned here because I’m having interweb crossover identity issues. I went back into private practice a few months ago (I’m an LCSW therapist type for kids, yo) and I just do not want people I work with finding this blog. We’re playing in 26 days (crap pants here) and this is the first time we’ve played in 8 years, almost to the day.

Before I became a mom, and before I became a therapist, I was a musician. I was very serious about it. I never had the kind of financial or  commercial success I’d hoped for, but I did make all kinds of music with all sorts of fantastic people and it made my life better. And now I’m doing it again and it feels so strange and familiar and like I’m traveling back in time but yet not. Like straddling two decades when your straddler is a little out of alignment.

And that’s just the good stuff, but that’s what I’m trying to fill my head with these days. And yours too.

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Eff You Economy.

by Myg on November 12, 2009

This blog. Ah.

My boys are 9 months and 3 weeks old today. They are in a magic phase where every mundane little thing sparkles, boo boos can be healed in seconds with a kiss and a hug, and little arms start to reach for me when I come into the room in that heart exploding “I want Mommy” way. I know every developmental phase has its perks, but this one I think is really special and will stay with me in a way that the newborn phase or the six month old phase probably won’t.

And all that is to tell you, I just don’t want to work. I want to be home with them so badly it just hurts. That’s what we planned on, it’s what I said I was going to do months ago and it’s what I always intended, but it is not what is.

I’ve been thinking a whole lot about my career in the past few months. I’ve been beating myself senseless over my lack of direction, focus and commitment. I’ve hit a professional ceiling, not because I’m at the limit of my skills or abilities. I’m stuck because I’m doing something I just don’t want to do right now. But I have to.

It’s a strange problem, you know? Pick a career path you think you’ll love. End up not loving it. Have babies in the middle of an economic melt down.  s/s Be grateful you can go back to it so you can keep the family afloat. Resent it. :| | (D.S. al coda to the be grateful part through the resent it part. Repeat daily forever and ever.)

I don’t feel well. I have a cold. And I am upset right now about all of this.

I want to be home with my kids. My husband wants me to be home with my kids. But I just can’t be right now.

And that really sucks. EFF you,  economy.

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Twinspeak

by Myg on October 19, 2009

Just to recap.

I haven’t been here, but then I keep telling you that and so you must know it by now, if you’ve been here and I’ve not been. The reason I haven’t been here is because at work, they now want me to work. Can you believe this shit? And at home, well, there are kids and a dog and a man and two cats, wait. Forget the cats, they suck.

The boys just started sleeping through the night a few weeks ago, but oh my god heavenly bliss! They sleep from around 8pm until anywhere between 6 and 7am, and compared to the living hell of getting up three to four times a night, we are getting sleep. We’re averaging about 6 or 7 hours a night – IN THE SAME BED – even. That’s huge.

But what else is that I’ve gotten to be sleep greedy, so right now it’s 10pm and I have to get up at 5:30am for work tomorrow (not a typical day, but sheesh, that’s early) and I should already be in bed, but I’m not, though I will be soon. As soon as I finish typing this. By the way, I was pumping for most of that paragraph. I got good, yo.

Blogging takes a backseat to sleeping. I know that’s effed up, I do know it. But that’s the way it is.

But on to the good part of this post: Doot and Bing, in heady discourse regarding the merits of breakfast and its ranking among the things we eat. Around the 1:15 mark Doot makes a startling discovery: he has a hand. It’s right there, on the end of his arm.

The Doot and Bing Show from Myg on Vimeo.

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Five Months.

by Myg on June 22, 2009

Doot and Bing my dearests,

Can it be? I don’t know how it happened, but according to my calendar you’ve been out five months now. Five months! Why, that’s nearly half a year, isn’t it? The nice thing about this year is that, unlike most years when it gets to be June and I say, ”Wow, I’ve really pissed this year away,” I know exactly why time is flying. This year I can say, yes, I’ve actually done something productive. And that productive thing would be keeping the two of you in fresh diapers and food around the clock.

Speaking of diapers and food, you’re both now eating solids! Seriously, those Sweet Potatoes are fairly rad, as evidenced not only by our tasting them but by Doot’s squealing during a meal, or Bing’s earnest grunting as he hurls his adorable little face onto the spoon as it’s headed towards his mouth.  

He really likes it!From what I can tell, rice cereal is alright too, but we’re a little concerned it may be the culprit behind our latest baby adventure: terds.  I was all cool with the baby terds until Bing went and launched a couple in the bath tub. I wasn’t expecting such a quick disintegration, but then it’s all a learning experience.

Your father, however, is not so cool with baby terds and is insisting we start prunes next week to help keep things, shall we say, loose. I really dunno about that, but I suppose we’ll see what the reaction is and let history judge. Oh, the stories we’ll tell at your 13th birthday party!

Now there has been more to this past month than eating and pooping, not that the formation of solid stools isn’t enough on its own. You guys have also been working so hard at doing stuff. For example, each of you can roll over half way. Doot can roll from belly to back, and Bing from back to belly. (Um, seems you two need to share some information there.) But that’s not all you know how to do now. Here, observe Bing at his desk:

Has the bunneh

IMG_1631Someday, my boy, I am certain there will be an iPhone app that can identify and taste all of those plush objects for you.  But until then, keep up the good work.

Not to be outdone, here’s Doot in his command chair:

Please, don't interrupt.Doot, right about here you are wondering why I’m holding a camera, and not a bowl of Sweet Potatoes.  Right after this was taken, no doubt a memo of protest was drafted and landed in my inbox, but it’s all fuzzy now because this is my fifth month straight of pulling triple shifts with my colleague in this Doot and Bing Raising enterprise, your father.

Darlings, that’s to say I love you with all that I am but I’m not thinking particularly straight these days. This may explain the near miss in exchanging the Neosporin with the A&D butt ointment.

You got to go back to the farm in Virginia this month and visit with Granny and Grandpa and all of your extended Italian relatives! Not once were you stained with tomato sauce, and nor were you the loudest people in the room, not even when you were screaming! Which did happen, by the way. Here’s a photo of us. Some details have been changed to protect the innocent:

IncognitoWe would be the details. You would be the innocent.

Something wonderful has begun to happen in the last few weeks. You’re going to bed at 6:30pm! Gone now are the evenings of your discontent, replaced by evenings where your father and I can Twitter side by side, muttering to each other about #iranelection and taking turns playing Stone Loops on my iPod. I know it doesn’t sound sexy, but kids, the meteor showers are NOT to be missed!

Hmmm. I wonder if by the time you’re in high school terms like iPod and Twitter and hashtag will still mean anything.

Last night Doot, you slept an entire 12 hours. I wept with joy. Bing, I won’t dance around the issue, son, you’ve GOT to start sleeping for more than two hours a shot, okay pal? I think you may be having a growth spurt, or rather, I PRAY TO GOD you’re having a growth spurt and this isn’t some sort of “accidental parenting™” or “night waking habit™.” I want you to know that I read and read and read about how to help you sleep at night, and it seems I’m going to have to let you “cry it out™ ” which some folks who adhere fervently to “attachment parenting™” would think might make you a serial killer some day.

Bing, a mother can go a little nuts trying to sort out all of the expert opinions out there. It seems like expert opinions on child rearing are like assholes. Or maybe, experts with opinions on child rearing are just assholes. I’m not sure anymore.

All I can say is this. Whoever you are, whatever you do, I am your mother and I will always love you. That said, sleeping more than two hours at a stretch overnight will only improve upon the matter.

In any case, my sons, let me end the matter this way. If one day you’re looking back and there’s still an internet and you can still read a blog post that was written when you were five months old, know that those were very good days indeed. Because they were days when you and your mom and your dad and your dog Mason and your two cats and your entire extended family all lived, sometimes happily and sometimes not, but we were all here and all of us in our own way marvelled at the joy you brought to our corner of the world.

So thanks for that, kids. For that, we’ll forget the sleep deprivation AND the terds in the bathtub.

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This and that.

by Myg on June 1, 2009

Among the items that were significant enough in my consciousness to warrant a blog mention today are:

1. Is Doot beginning to teethe? Oh, please God please God no – not yet, not like this. Why am I concerned he may be? Intermittent screechiness accompanied by voracious gnawing on fingers and copious amounts of drool for about two days. Wait, let me answer before you ask. No, he’s not just hungry. No, he’s not running a fever. And no, I can’t feel any little tooth buds nor are his gums red or swollen or perceptibly sore to the touch. He’s got no symptoms of an ear infection, cold, or any other physical malady that I can tell. I guess that leaves infant schizophreniform as the only logical possibility aside from mo’fo TEETHING.

2. Wednesday morning we’re leaving to go visit my mom and my beloved-but-not-seen-enough-family-from-out-west! And some family from close by who I never see too, still beloved, but just on the same side of lazy as we are. Said reunion is taking place at my mom’s farm in Virginia. I’m truly edge of my seat excited to have everyone meet the brothers. But man, if that teething thing is really starting, it could turn the baby drama up to a whole new level. Imagine 15 members of an Italian-American family and their dogs all under one roof for six days. If you can’t imagine it, imagine the Sopranos in the country without semi-automatics or peach everything interior design. I’m bracing myself for lots of unsolicited parenting tips. My plan? I’m going to smile politely and pretend I’m interested. My problem? Things never go the way I plan them. (And if you’re related to me and reading this now, of course, of course I don’t mean you. I mean those other relatives who always give unsolicited advice. You know the ones.)

3. This list isn’t in order of any kind of importantness (which, for the record, isn’t really a word. I know that.)

4. [REDACTED]

5. My job, the one I was leaving? It got funded for another year when nobody was looking. In a state where the economic downturn has struck so hard that full time state employees are forced to take unpaid furloughs in lieu of layoffs, how does one accidentally get a state funded grant for $50k?

6. Sometimes I think Flash™ wants to make me its bitch.

7. I will never, ever lose the additional 30 lbs I want need to lose as long as Obama allows peanut butter cookies to roam free. And that goes for ice cream and snack chips too. All kinds of snack chips. Snack chips FTW™!

8. Four days as a new mom with very short hair and my internal Stacy and Clinton™ say, “FAIL.” They don’t like how it looks. Of course, they also convinced me to buy that hot pink sweater with the short poofy sleeves that makes me look like a middle aged cheerleader on a date with the gout. So, I’m not saying in the abstract my hair actually looks bad. But I am saying that somehow that lack of hair really points out the excess of flesh in my midsection. Okay, in my ass, arms and thighs too. Don’t know how. Haircuts are magic I guess.

9. [REDACTED]

10. And the cutest thing in the world is this:

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and various variations of this:

IMG_1211

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Postcards from my unconscious

by Myg on May 21, 2009

Two nights in a row I had really bad dreams.

For those of you who don’t know, I am trained as a psychotherapist. And I appreciate dreams – even bad ones – because there’s little that’s going to tell you as much about yourself.

I haven’t spent a whole lot of time analyzing these yet, but I do believe lack of sleep is the major culprit. Persistent sleep deprivation has slowly turned my mood to shit. I think what you’ll read below will support that thesis.

If you’re into analyzing dreams, please leave a comment or drop a note and let me know what you think. I’d love to hear it.

Dream 1 – 5/19/09

ccrp_0812_01_z1964_chevrolet_el_camino_cheap_primerbefore I am stuck in traffic and my baby boys are in the back seat. We were in some weird dream car that only had primer for paint and was sort of like an enormous El Camino (which I don’t even think have back seats, but whatever). I made a wrong turn in trying to get around the traffic and found myself stuck on a road, going the wrong way, unable to turn around and having pissed off a few drivers in the process. Next thing I know, I’m in the passenger’s seat and there’s a 400 pound man driving my car. He manages to get the car turned around, going back in the right direction. However, while we’re stopped at a traffic light, I politely tell him that we’ll be getting out of the car now, and he grabs my wrist tight and says, “Oh no you won’t.” And that’s when I realize he intends to rape me, right there in front of the kids. I stay cool and begin looking for a way to escape with the kids and then realize I can’t escape with the kids unless I kill this guy. I start looking for something in the car to stab or bludgeon him with and realize that I might be convicted of manslaughter and have my kids taken away if I kill him before he rapes me. Just as  I begin to panic, I wake up.

Discuss.

Dream 2 – 5/20/09

I am supposed to be doing something at work, but I can’t remember what it was. Instead of doing it, I am browsing garage sales for pocketbooks with a coworker. My boss shows up and I am wracked with guilt, so I sneak off to my car (this time my real car), hoping she won’t see me. I start to drive but the road disappears and instead my car is picking its way down a precarious mountainside like a seasoned trail horse. Then my car loses its footing and I start to fall, car and all, endlessly. I scream and scream and then suddenly I am out of the car, in the shadows of the neighborhood where I last saw my boss. They are looking for me. A whole group of them, my boss included. And that’s when it hits me – I’ve died and come back a demon. I am momentarily saddened by this, but then I start to run because they are coming for me. I run in the darkness but the light of the dawn is encroaching on my oasis of shadow and I start to ROAR like a demon, for my very demonic survival. My roaring wakes me up.

(For the record, according to Facebook’s “Which badass thing are you?” quiz, I am a “Fucking Wizard” and not a demon.)

Discuss.

I’d like to take this moment to thank all of you who commented on my last post, and indicated that yes, I can still say the word “fuck.” With all the sleep deprivation around here, I’m going to need it.

Also, I really do need a new pocketbook.

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Denouement

by Myg on May 15, 2009

This is going to be quick as 1. it’s Friday and who the hell reads blogs on Fridays? 2. my sinuses are frakkkkkin killing me for some reason today. Could it please just rain already? and 3. I really need to do some work. The kind I get paid to actually do.

So I had the big meeting with my boss yesterday afternoon, and it went great.

I explained our situation – that Alex is trying to get a position for the fall, and if he gets it, I intend to quit and be home with the kids as the cost of daycare for two babies is astronomical. I’ve since learned that I may be able to hire a nanny to stay with the boys for less money, which is an option I’ll keep in mind. Though I don’t know how easy it is to find part-time nannies who can work different days of the week, as my work schedule has to remain fairly flexible. And I haven’t quite figured out a system to screen out the trick-turning, crack dealing, booze stealing, child beating freelance child care workers.

Nothing against the vast majority freelance child care workers, though. And obviously, hiring in-home child care is a great solution that works for lots of families.

So when I explained all of this to my boss, she was more than understanding. If anything, I think it relieved her of the stress of trying to find new funding to keep me employed. At the same time, she indicated she wanted to keep me connected to the University – she didn’t want to lose me.

I have to tell you, that made me feel really, really good.

She also was worried about what would happen to us if Alex couldn’t find a position, particularly our health insurance. Isn’t that crazy? Like someone in an employer position would worry about us as a family?

So she rattled off a bunch of possible opportunities with the department that may be coming up in the fall. I reassured her I had a back up plan, and that by mid-summer we’d have a better idea of how Alex’s job hunt was going and whether we’d need to revisit our current strategy.  She said “good” and gave me a look that said, okay I won’t worry about it until then, but at that point, I’m going to worry about it again.

She’s a good boss. Really, the best kind.

I feel good today except OMFG MY SINUSES.

This wasn’t short, like I promised.

It never is.

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While biting my nails…

by Myg on May 14, 2009

So, the meeting with my boss where I was going resign was pushed back to 2:30pm.

This shouldn’t be such a big deal, only excepting that it is. On so many levels.

I am really thankful to all of you who’ve written privately to me or commented about this. I have observed, very interestingly, that nearly everyone who weighed in on this is a working mother. I don’t know if that’s a coincidence or not, but I’m going to go with the theory that working moms are the ones who have the strongest feelings about this issue.  And I want to point out the sacrifice that working moms make to support their families on the financial front as well as the home front is no small thing. And this may be sexist and unfair, but I believe moms who work make the bigger sacrifice than dads who work.

I’ll explain why as soon as I have a reason. Right now I only have a gut feeling.

Let me also say that I whole heartedly support and agree with women who work, whether by choice or by necessity. I hear ya. I really do. I am in your boat right now.

The issue for me is that I don’t want to be here, and I’ve come to recognize something about myself over the years and that’s this.

If I follow my heart, even when my head tells me I am crazy to do it, I will be okay. If I follow my head when my heart is wrenching inside my chest, I will not be okay until I align my life with my heart.

I am terrified to let go of a good position. I feel stupid, on so many levels, to do it.

But my heart is wrenching inside my chest, so I know I’ve got to change what’s going on here.

Please, wish me luck.

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